How to trace a hacker?

[kobaltin]

I suspect, or rather I'm pretty sure, that someone controls my computer. I need to find out who's doing that, somehow find him/her. Because I'm unfamiliar with this topic at all, I try to find someone experienced, who would be able to help me with this. I'd be very grateful for any progress, becoming really hopeless..

Besides I would like to say that I can learn new things pretty well and if someone capable is willing to help, I believe that you will not be bothered with idiocy too much.

[Defience]

What type of operating system are you using (Windows, Linux, Mac, etc)? How are you connecting to the internet (wireless, cable, dialup)? How long has this been going on? Have you recently downloaded anything? Do you have any anti-virus software? What is leading you to believe someone is controlling your computer? Sounds like a trojan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_horse_(computing)
http://www.tech-faq.com/trojan-virus.html
http://www.microsoft.com/hk/protect/computer/viruses/rats.mspx

[fashizzlepop]

There's no way we can tell what's up with your non-existent description. But most likely Trojan or rootkit.

[kobaltin]

At first I apologise for my slowness, I can't speak english very well and also I wrote to some other forums with this topic. Well, I'll explain closely my suspicion to make it clearer that I'm not hunting for the fiction. Quite a lot of weird things happens on my pcs, so I don't mention everything. Fact that all just CAN be interpreted as a coincidence makes me crazy. So for example:
1. One time my computer was spontaneously rebooting several times a day. Without apparent reason it stopped itself again.
2. I was looking for a job in one city and every time I opened any offer (on a different sites) in that place, the browser crashed. Other sites worked fine.
3. While communicating through ICQ it often switches to different language on keyboard, so I can't write correctly. It happens mostly when talking to one person and at times when it's somehow sharpened between us. This never happened to me before and I use icq for cca 10 years..
4. One day the computer failed to start. I decreased overclocking, which ran steadily before, and it works again.
5. Once I played the game and every time I made a mistake of inattention (like missed the turn onto the road or died), the game crashed. It was happening many times consecutively, so I had to stop play. And again, it works fine now without apparent reason.
etc....

I installed a new OS, but these anomalies are still here. And it happens on my both pcs:
1. board asus a7n8x-x, amd athlonXP 2500+, radeon 9800, seagate hdd, os XP, antivir NOD32, firewall netlimiter2
2. DFI NF4 Infinity, amd opteron 144, radeon hd4850, 2x hdd seagate, hdd samsung, os XP + 7, antivir a firewall in XP like above and in 7 without anything.
My home network consists of adsl router and switch.

[fabianhjr]

Please download this: http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/ and run it in safe mode. It should output something like this:

Code: Select all

Logfile of HijackThis v2.x.x
Scan saved at [hour], on [date]
Platform: [Your OS]

Running processes:
[list here]

[More stuff here]

Please paste it here under a

Code: Select all

[code][/code]

tag. If you are curious as what this program does googla a bit and go to WikiPedia.

[insomaniacal]

Some of those things can be attributed to many different problems.

Constant rebooting could be an issue with the power supply that corrected itself, in fact, it's a fairly common symptom. Or, it could be a rouge program with high enough privileges sending OS level reboot commands.

Your browser crashing also has tons of possibilities. Perhaps the site was simply incompatible with the browser you were using? In extreme cases a crash is not too crazy a result.

The ICQ thing is weird. Have you tried searching for specifics bugs relating to language in ICQ? Does the language change for you entire OS, or just for ICQ?

The games could be due to poor programming, or mild incompatibility with your OS. (The original "Mafia", for example, would crash whenever I hit the "exit" button under Windows 7.)

You mentioned overclocking, although this does give your system a boost in CPU speed, remember, those limits are there for a reason. I'm fairly sure overclocking can cause some weird behavior, especially if the CPU isn't properly ventilated. That probably wouldn't account for all of your problems, but it could certainly have an overall negative effect on your system if you're not careful.

[msbachman]

First off, regarding the title of your post, there's no evidence yet that any malware exists on your system. You need to take the advice of others and scan for it first.

That said, I'm not one to jump on the bandwagon for blaming any/all of your malfunctions on malware right off the bat. The rebooting, as stated by Insom. above, could be a power supply issue. My advice would be if you have it is to remove the power supply and blow it out with compressed air. That could help if dust is causing excessive heat buildup.

As for someone monitoring your playing a game, I think it's hilarious that you'd be so paranoid to think that. It's unlikely, to say the least. Even if someone could do that, why would they?

I don't know anything about ICQ whatsoever. If it's causing you problems, you should know I get by fine without using it at all.

So to summarize what others have said, scan your system(s) (you seem to have two?), merely to humor those who think it's malware and eliminate one possibility. Then, you'll need to look into whether or not others have had similar issues with ICQ and the game you play (you didn't even give us the name of it). Also, blow out your power supply with air.

[insomaniacal]

Furthermore, I'd recomend using Pidgin [Link Here]. It's a chat client that works with many popular IM clients, as well as having IRC support, and possibly some other goodies that I'm too lazy to confirm.

It makes managing all your contacts a lot easier, and would get rid of your ICQ problem (assuming it's the ICQ Client that's casuing your pain.).

[S33PlusPlus]

The rebooting issue could be the overclocking too.
My friend's PC was constantly rebooting. It turns out he was getting the classic BSoD errors associated with overclocking but by default Windows was rebooting automatically when it happened, so he didn't see the actual error.
Even if it's not an OC'ing issue you should still disable automatic rebooting.
You can do that by going to My Computer, and from the right-click menu selecting Properties. In that dialog go to the 'Advanced' tab, and click on the 'settings' button in the startup and recovery section. From there deselect 'automatically restart' and press apply.

[sanddbox]

Honestly, the most important thing to consider when assessing whether something is malware is to try to think of the motives the one who infected you would have. First of all, they would almost certainly want to stay undetected, and second of all, any virus activites would usually generate some sort of profit - be it opening ads/spam sites, DDOSing a site (which people pay for), etc. Very rarely is someone going to want to just screw with you, and even more rarely will someone screw with you in the ways you listed. If they want to mess with you, they would use your webcam, talk to you, go on your online accounts, etc...not crashing your browser, messing with ICQ (whatever that is), etc.