A friend of mine found out that someone we both know has hacked into her computer (he told her he did it). But, this is what I cannot figure out. He was able to save her Yahoo "chats." These were chats she didn't save. She knows he did it because she has seen the transcripts. I do not see how this is possible. She is rather upset about it; it was an invasion of her privacy. it concerns me because I can't figure out how someone could do this. She does have this person on her "Chat list" of friends. Oh, the chats he accessed and save were with her and other people--not him. Any ideas???

Hmmmm... I would suspect (being the naturally suspicious guy that I am) that somehow, he's installed some tracking software on her system. I don't have an idea of specifics, but there are things you can get which can record what happens in a computer session. Some are hardware based, and some are software based.

I'd check the physical PC itself first to make sure there are no components that don't belong (one critter plugs into the keyboard cord, IIRC).

Then I'd check the PC for all background processes and things in the task manager, and get rid of everything I don't know, recognize, or accept.

At a final step, I'd look at reinstalling Windows if you're really concerned. DO a clean install from a format and you can be more certain of what's on there. I'd also enable security (i.e. no file sharing, shared directories, etc.).

Good luck.

*B*

He could have installed hidden software that records key-strokes. Many applications are available to do this, some are marketed to parents to keep tabs on kids internet usage, others are pure hacker tools.

What a scummy human being, hacking into a persons PC and stealing their private communications.

<font color=cadetblue>Well if Yahoo messenger is like MSN, then it will save all chat logs in a certain folder which the hacker can view if he has access to her computer.</font>

Was he explicitly granted permission to attempt to hack into her computer, in writing?

No? Thatll be jail time then.

There is also a remote access option on XP. I do not know much about it but could this be a way in too?

And as for the person, what a scumbag! I bet youre poor friend feels violated :mad: When will hacking be treated seriously and offenders given time in goal. :(

I don't know Yahoo chat but if it's like ICQ it saves the chatsession by it self... you can see history of all the things you have said to a person.

What reason did he have to get a hold of these transcripts, and what good does it do him... amazing friend, huh?

I don't think I was clear on something. They are not in the same house, they are not even in the same country. I think it was Andewas that said that Yahoo saves all your chats (whether you save them ot not) into a folder. Does anyone know where this folderis? What it is called? How you access it?

<font color=cadetblue>I haven't used Yahoo for ages so I'm not positive but I think that Yahoo creates a folder in My Documents for whichever user logs in to Yahoo. The saved conversations should be there. I believe they're saved as rtf or doc files so all you need to do is click on them and you can read them.</font>

Make sure she doesn't have any trojans or keyloggers. Spybot search and destroy can be found here http://spybot.safer-networking.de/ and ad-aware can be found here www.lavasoftusa.com . These can remove malicious programs, but Formatting, clearing temp directories and log files, and changing passwords, especially default passwords, are also important.