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Do you think it's possible that spyware or virus software could have been put on my computers as a result of the compromise? Is that the reason you're suggesting that I reformat all hard drives?

That seems a little drastic, but of course, I do want to be protected. Couldn't I achieve the same effect with anti-spyware or antivirus software?

Do you know of any examples where this has happened to someone?

Here's my plan--please let me know what you think. I've turned off all file sharing and have set my MAC filter not to allow anyone to connect to the network. But, I'm leaving the wireless network on (and my laptop off). If a computer with my laptop's MAC address tries to connect to my network, my filtering will pick it up & let me know that it happened, but won't let anyone connect. That will help me decide if this person is trying to break in again, and if he was spoofing my MAC address, and if so, will definitely tell me that I have something to be worried about & will be even more careful. Even if nobody tries to break in, I'll still change account numbers & check with credit bureaus to make sure nobody is doing anything fishy.

Yes, the reformat advice [makes me sound like the AOL help desk, doesn't it? :) ] is a drastic measure but safest if you aren't very computer savvy. After all, the way you describe it these people had pretty much full access to your system. Therefore, you have no idea what they installed. It could well be some custom code that doesn't match a known virus or spyware signature. That is why I don't think AV and Spybot measures will be enough.

No, I don't know of any examples of this happening but I do have a strong IT background so this isn't idle chatter.

Securing your lan and trapping an intrusion are good things to do. If you don't already have it, install the Zone Alarm firewall and be sure no program has unchallenged access to the Internet. That way, if they installed a "phone home" agent, it won't be able to get out without your knowledge. If they are smart enough to beat ZA, then we're back to burning it down and starting over. Granted we're talking about worst case and it is more likely that the intruders were after easy Internet access or data they could simply grab.

Your main exposure is the data that has already escaped and that needs to be the primary focus of what you do next. You have a plan to deal with your accounts and that's good. Don't forget your online accounts like Amazon, etc. Also, let the security department of your ISP know what happened. Maybe they can do a trace or let you know of unusual email activity on your account. Notify the local police. File a police report and start reading up on identity theft. I believe getting it on record is an important part of your defense down the road if identity theft was the intent. The danger is that they found out through the data on the hard drive enough facts about you to impersonate you. You might want to monitor your credit report for a while, watching for new accounts appearing.

Best of luck to you. FReepmail me if you want to disucss this further.

It's *possible* that something was placed on your computer; most likely as someone already mentioned, they were wardriving, just leaching off your internet connection. An excellent program to check for backdoor trojan horses, etc., is Spybot, which can be downloaded at http://security.kolla.de/ , that along with a decent virus scan would be sufficient, you shouldn't need to format your hard drives. Use a program like "HijackThis" to check your startup entries in your registry also.