Online ID stolen yesterday. Anyone else?

originally posted by: aboutface
a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

I used to love ytube so in order to avoid google I would have to avoid YT. I watch YT less and less but am not quite weaned off it altogether. It was the first time I ever had any problem with my google account. Thanks for your advice. I'm wondering if I did pick up something, as my home page has changed to MSN and I cannot get rid of it. Either it's caused by my ISP (which I strongly suspect) or a virus but all scans come out ok.

I watch YT a bit myself, but I rarely log in, and have cookies blocked, so no tracking.

Regarding the home page, check for new installations, such as unwanted toolbars and the like, first. Now and then, they dont ask us if we want the extra program with some update or another, and you can end up with one that changes your hme page. I assume you tried resetting it, since you said you can't get rid of it. There are some ideas online about this, that might or might not help - search link

Hope you can work this out!

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

Thanks for the links. I've tried a couple, but still no luck. My ISP asked me to make Yahoo y home page and yep, it had some kind of toolbar. It's soooo annoying! I know this sounds awful, but I'm actually beginning to look back with a trifle amount of fondness on the penis-enlargement email days. At least then we could just delete them or ask for the afternoon off to research new medical improvements, lol.

a reply to: aboutface

That sounds so frustrating! The only other thing I can think to suggest is to uninstall and reinstall the browser, saving nothing but bookmarks. You'd need a second browser to do it, but that might work. Heck, if it was me, I'd even consider cutting and pasting any bookmarked addresses into a notepad, then completely clearing all browser stuff, deleting any left-over folders, before reinstalling. Deleting any and all toolbars before a reinstall isn't a bad plan, either. A little time consuming, but it might fix this for you.

Toolbars are a bane and also a sign that you might have a virus. It's hard to tell these days as so many software installs try to sneak toolbars and browser changes into their terms of service... knowing that if they give us four or five windows in a row we are likely to simply click "yes" to get through them.

In all my years of being on the Net, Google has never sent me anything about logging in from different cities or IP's. Other services, like Yahoo, always notice - to the annoying point that even using my phone on my home WiFi will prompt Yahoo to make me jump through hoops both to use the mobile device and then again when I sit back down at my PC. But never Google. Given that I used to travel for a living and used Google the entire time, there's that to consider.

If I were in your shoes my first order of business would be to run Malwarebytes in chameleon mode, and then Gmer to be safe. Then I would download a free password vault and change ALL of my passwords, including the one to my home WiFi network. One of the biggest issues with security right now is that many if not most companies require a numerical value and a capital letter to be included in your password. While this does prevent people from using the same tired passwords like "God" or "User" that were standards 20 years ago - it also makes cracking and phishing more easy than if they simply let us choose a few short random words, all strung together. IE it's easier to crack "StarTrek1966" than it is to crack "dogwrenchorangechevy".

a reply to: Hefficide

You speeka de Greek, amigo. How do I run it in chameleon mode?