I had over last months a very bad thing happening to my 2 PC's. (W7, W Vista). My two PC got infected from an unknown reason, I spent weeks trying to figured out what was going on. I had NIS 2013 on the 2 PC(I forgot the #21.## or #22 or #23). My 2 PC's were top Max security. I only go online to site certified as green by Norton... I steed up first my NIS to maximum and did not changed some set up since installed. I can date his intrusion as most likely few months back, when strange things started to appear on PC. (I can give several examples, but trying to keep this post to minimum, even if already way too long). I posted few posts here, I was suggested here to ran a program deep delete potential issues deep into the rootkit, I have installs NIS the way it is instructed and reinstall it several times and nothing came up as issue. It appeared few times that I had a Norton severe error messages popping up with a number, where I try to find solution here and or Norton direct suggestion help, not had good success as those popup came back about 10 times over 2/3 months. A lot of strange things appeared on the 2 PC's for few months, while I posted few times on Norton Forum and on IM Northern hacker most likely stayed quiet on my PC until begin of May, when things got all wrong almost in one day. I keep all accounts and my password on USB card, nothing on the PC.... I needed to add to new accounts to list with their passwords. He certainly read or copy or similar and got my admin and all my accounts/passwords at that moment with also all my online accounts/users. He changed admin password on both PC. I could not do anything anymore. He changed also all my password that were on my flash card (living only one password for me to see the damage he was doing to my PC). Luckily I had another card with online passwords. But he rapidly went everywhere online (or faster than me) reset all my accounts, passwords, questions to recover accounts, changed emails links to accounts and even changed questions and emails link to accounts and delete my cell phone# as last common security used by websites. First thing he did on PC was to deactivate NIS. Nothing was safe. He has done tons of things. MY ISP stopped my internet services few days later, as "I" was having a way outputting a way too high level of data... My ISP did not advice me of it, I learned it a week later(bad services from that ISP). I assume spam. There are still several important accounts I can reset, because the hacker knows all my questions/answers, the ones not changed and others things to reset password. He even changed several of my Q/A... Emails link to account, even if it doesn't lead to hacker, they are most likely dummy emails, and a large # of web site owners (some very large companies) are not helpful to reset accounts without Q/A or alternate email and delete cell # to contact me...So the hacker is free to go with these. Very disappointed of NIS, my NIS security since 2006... What are my options? I lost about 2 full weeks of vacations to try to understand / fix all previous issues. I finally give up. Those PC were way to infected, I believe nothing coming out of those could be consider as safe... :(
Here, PC hacking recovery process not completely resolved. But getting there. Still have 8 accounts to resets out of I counted 63 (stores, etc.) with issues as stated above. And might still not have counted all. You know account like Amazons or a tech forum... So, two PC's went to garbage... 2 new W8 found a new home. OK! I will limit my W8 nightmare to adapt to new os. Hope W8.1 will come ASAP and be intuitive as all W were..(couldn't resist to add W8 frustration to this hacking personal major issue.
Please, can someone reply to those 3 questions please:
Q: What would you do with the ext. HD that served as back up for my Sony the week it got hacked. I know the back up was done while Sony was under hacked. I guess all this is also garbage as the Sony itself... My backup were incremented by version of files. Could I try to go on extHD and find a way to extract (or I don't know the word) the first version of files, dating of before the hacking?
Second Q: I had another PC hacked with back up on same extHD, but had not done a back up since before the hacking started on my 2nd PC. I have two main folder on that HD, one name Sony and tee other HP, each containing their own set of back up (HP has my pics collection of over 100 000 pics). Is my HP back up safe or possibly infected, if infected = does it mean I lost my pic collection?
Q3: After this major issue, lost of ton of time AND important data, should I give a second chance to NIS to protect my network or should I go to another company? Thanks for helping.