A software firewall is useful here - since it shows a warning whenever something tries to connect to the internet, it makes it pretty obvious if theres something malicious in your system. Although I have heard tell of trojans that can actualy send a mouseclick signal to the OS, fooling the firewall into thinking the trojan has been granted internet access when all the user saw was a flicker, if that.

ahh, thanks for reminder Andrewas! www.zonelabs.com for software firewall solution.

Wellard might be on to something with this. All you need to use it is the IP addy and a password. There are also a few programs that have been out for a while that do the exact same thing. You wouldnt even have to hack into anything to set it up. If the friend who did the hacking knew what he was doing he could set it all up in the time it would take someone to walk to the fridge and back.

Yeah, I was going to ask what OS is on her PC, and His. The remote access is a neat tool, that can potentially allow access to your friends pc. I also think that there is a feature on Yahoo that can record chats, for future viewing.

Have her go to http://www.dslreports.com. Under the tools option, they have a utility which will run a full port scan on your IP address and it will give you a general idea how vulnerable her pc is to attack.

I don't use Yahoo messenger, but if it's anything like AIM there are all sorts of ways to get peoples information by using hacks in the program itself. The "hacker" wouldn't even need to gain access to the vicitms computer to get their login info or whatever else they wanted.