Paranoia: Or should I be concerned about being hacked?
 

Just last night, I got a creepy phone call, that makes me concerned. Basically, the phone rang, I picked up & said hello. The person on the other end said hello & hung up

Anyway, it could have just been a wrong number, but I vaguely recall seeing something on television about hackers using this method to check their marks. Or I could just be being paranoid.

Still, just to be on the safe side I did a full sweep with my Trend Micro Internet Security program (the current version tends to only do a quick sweep. Short version, I found 22 items of concern.

Then I put my internet security to full & Trend Micro is saying that svchost.exe is having Suspicious Activity. It also gave me a warning about lucomserver3_4.exe (or something like that).

Lately, I did download 2 programs for getting rid of problem pixels ona LCD monitor, but at the time they looked safe enough. Although, I will admit that occasionally I don't always visit the safest of websites.

Currently, I'm inclined to just do a full reinstall of everything just to be on the safe side, but just wanted to check with others who know a bit better if I'm just overly panicking.

SWB

So nothing's actually out of the ordinary with your actual computer, and it was just the phone call? Doesn't really sound terribly noteworthy.

svchost is a Windows process, lucomserver seems to be part of Symantec update processes. If you're concerned about those two, googling the exact file name usually gives you a few fairly reliable sites that detail what these processes do and where the .exe files should be located. Maybe run a few malware scanners over them to be sure if anything still seems fishy.

How would that phone thing work, anyway?

I'm not sure, but again its only something I vaguely recall. My computer has been loading a lot slower lately, but it did happen right after I loaded up a new printer. So that could entirely be the problem. I have also been noticing an uptick in the amount of spam my computer has been blocking.

I fully admit, that I tend to be overly paranoid about being hacked. I just know that I also don't always have the safest internet surfing practices, and figure I'm bound to be hit sooner or later because of my limited understanding of what it would take for me to be hacked. (I try, but I admit not to always knowing which downloads to trust, and since my searching method usually has me opening every other Google link that I see, I end up occasionally getting some sites that I'm not entirely sure of.)

So, I tend to fall back on my inate sense of Paranoia whenever my computer starts acting buggy & resort to reinstalling everything. Which, in a sense isn't a horrible thing, because I usually nix the bugs in the process.

SWB

to be honest with you, a nice part of the hacker "mythos" comes from paranoia and fantasy. Not that you shouldnt take care of your PC... but first you need to know... why would anyone hack you?

Nowadays, the majority of products that can protect you from virus, spyware and hackers (even the freeware ones) are powerfull enough to shield you of pretty much anything the majority of hackers (which are "noobs") can do. You're just not safe if the people who actually want to hack you are those true hackers who can actually hack their way into security systems. But those are so few and you would have to wonder "why me?" and there is hardly a reason from what i can tell.. so you should probably be safe. Because those real hackers dont need to "pratice" by hacking common pc's, nor do it "for the lolz", their mindset is just in their on "scene". Everybody else? A good suite of a few good programs and you're 100% ok unless you yourself put a virus on your computer

As long as your computer isn't connected to a phone line a phone call can't hack your computer.

As for how it works:

Good God! &T is shutting down! I'm depressed now.
I was going to link you to a text file there but I obviously can't now.
I can't remember exactly how it works but it has to do with packets and ports and dial-up modems.

Do you have, or have you ever had, a Norton product on your computer?

Besides that, do you have a dedicated antispyware on your computer? Spybot S&D is good for this. Do you use Firefox or IE?

Honestly, I think you're being a bit paranoid, especially regarding the phone line thing. Unless you have documents on your computer with your phone number in them, they wouldn't have any way to link your computer to your phone number; besides, they can only do that if they've already gained access to your computer, and at that point why do they bother calling you?

It was a wrong number / someone looking for someone else at your residence. Don't worry about it.

Just a note: I've called the wrong number before and done similar things out of embarrassment. It happens.

A more reasonable thing to be paranoid about is whether they were calling to make sure no one was there before they broke in and robbed the place. You know, since thieves are much more common than truly 1337 haxxorz.

Probably just a wrong number, though.

True, but the report I saw, seemed to indicate that a Hacker determines that they've successfully Hacked your system is by pulling information, such as a phone number to verify they've got you. (At least, that's what I think I saw. Then again, its been years since I've seen that, but I have recently had to put down my phone # for an account.)

...

Not that it matters any, because the longer I carry this out, the more clear it seems that I'm just running off a paranoia high & a clear lack of sleep. The phone call came in at about 9:45-10:00pm, my day had been a bit rough & obviously, I don't think I got a good night's sleep.

I might look into doing something with my computer, just because it is buggy & has some problems that need looking into. However, I think at this point Meister, you can just close this thread.

I'll post an apology on this travesty of a thread later, once I've gotten an apparently needed full night's sleep.

Kevin

Intercepted traffic is different than being hacked, unless you've got a keylogger. The former really depends on whether you use wifi or not, and the latter would produce strange network activity (if you monitor such things).

Your concerns about your glitches are overstated, but if you've never had a Symantec product on your computer, I'd be interested to find out why you have their update manager running.