Please help me!

[hraghuvir]

Hi all,

This is my first post and I'm really sorry to sound like an attention seeker but i really need some help and even my local Apple store guy has difficulty understanding what exactly is wrong. Firstly, I would like to say that my Mac OS X Tiger PowerPC G5 has been serving me very very well for a long time and for a long time I always fancied the Windows OS but recently I came to know and appreciate Mac and I really love Mac. In fact I will be studying Computer Science in Carnegie-Mellon soon and I hope to work for Mac. Anyway, I'll cut to the chase and tell you experts what exactly my problem is.

You see, recently, I pulled a stupid and unnecessary prank on this kid in my school which I shouldn't have done of course but the rigor of college applications just got to me I guess. I was on my Mac and on a bogus MSN account pranking this kid. He then suddenly dropped a bombshell saying he would track my IP. I quickly exited but unfortunately he emailed the bogus account saying he had tracked my IP using my packets and that he was going to crash my com.

Frankly at that time I thought it was stupid and never thought he could pull it off but turns out this script kiddy could. I know that Mac's software is beyond excellent and that it is pretty much unhackable. Now forgive me for being not so well versed in this network and computer jargon and all that but he tells me that although my software cannot be hacked, he can send some virus or some command through my wireless network router and into my Mac which will super-accelerate my hard drive and permanently fail my computer forever.

Now the thing is that I am a pilot trainee in the Air Force, and although we fly up in the sky, we are taught (believe it or not) hostage negotiation and thus I apologized and now I have brought the entire episode to a close. Yet I honestly believe (and we are taught this in the Air Force) that negotiation only allows one to buy time and I would like to ask you lads here sincerely how can I protect my Mac and what I can do. This kid told me my entire history of website for the past 3 years which shocked me entirely, proving that he has had access to my router or my Mac. What can I do to protect my computer? Just to let you know, there are a couple of other windows laptops connected to this network.

I have turned on my Firewall in Mac, downloaded DoorStop X Firewall, a second user account without admin privileges, encrypted my hard disk, set password for my router and my Mac and enabled some added security features in System Preferences. Now I know you guys are very good in this kind of things and as a fellow Mac user, I would like to ask you for your help. Please help me

Sincerely,
Your friend

 

[searay345]

Hello Hraghuvir and welcome!!

WOW, interesting story. I was at the opposite end of your situation (the punk hacker kid). I was pranked and I just wanted to play along. Using some network tools, i tracked his IP and, just for fun, redirected his "packets" to point at different websites than he was typing. It was funny hearing him complain about it since it was down the hall from me in the dorms.

Anyway, to your situation, you have done everything to protect yourself it looks like. Kudos.

I honestly don't see how someone will penetrate your network now. However, since you access the web externally, there isn't anything you can do other than know what websites you are navigating to and be careful who you prank.

As far as "damaging" your computer with a virus or Malware, since you locked up your mac tight, both in the network and at the computer itself, I wouldn't worry about it so much.

First off, to write a virus for the mac currently is pointless since the market share is much much lower than that of Microsoft.

Also, the coding of such a powerful malware is extremely difficult since OS X is based off of UNIX coding, which is very resilient to most attacks.

What you need to be careful of is malicious AppleScripts. My friend wanted me to try out this script that wiped out the "documents" folder. He neglected to create a fail-safe in the script and I lost my entire documents folder. Luckily, I had a backup and everything was normal.

If you are a smart end user, you will be fine. In my opinion, you have done a good job closing off your system.

Cheerio
Searay

 

[Ric]

Hi there,

First things first...

I would unplug all the computers from the internet and build a faraday cage ;-)

Seriously, unplug all the computers, routers etc on your network.

Wipe them using a secure wipe, the reinstall the OS on each computer.

If someone has penetrated them before, they will have probably left a backdoor for them to get back in...

Reset the passwords on the routers etc, then connect everything backup.

What type of encryption are you using on your wireless network ?

Does your router have a firewall built in ?

regards

Ric

 

[hraghuvir]

Hello Hraghuvir and welcome!!

WOW, interesting story. I was at the opposite end of your situation (the punk hacker kid). I was pranked and I just wanted to play along. Using some network tools, i tracked his IP and, just for fun, redirected his "packets" to point at different websites than he was typing. It was funny hearing him complain about it since it was down the hall from me in the dorms.

Anyway, to your situation, you have done everything to protect yourself it looks like. Kudos.

I honestly don't see how someone will penetrate your network now. However, since you access the web externally, there isn't anything you can do other than know what websites you are navigating to and be careful who you prank.

As far as "damaging" your computer with a virus or Malware, since you locked up your mac tight, both in the network and at the computer itself, I wouldn't worry about it so much.

First off, to write a virus for the mac currently is pointless since the market share is much much lower than that of Microsoft.

Also, the coding of such a powerful malware is extremely difficult since OS X is based off of UNIX coding, which is very resilient to most attacks.

What you need to be careful of is malicious AppleScripts. My friend wanted me to try out this script that wiped out the "documents" folder. He neglected to create a fail-safe in the script and I lost my entire documents folder. Luckily, I had a backup and everything was normal.

If you are a smart end user, you will be fine. In my opinion, you have done a good job closing off your system.

Cheerio
Searay

Thanks a lot Seeray!

 

[hraghuvir]

Hi there,

First things first...

I would unplug all the computers from the internet and build a faraday cage ;-)

Seriously, unplug all the computers, routers etc on your network.

Wipe them using a secure wipe, the reinstall the OS on each computer.

If someone has penetrated them before, they will have probably left a backdoor for them to get back in...

Reset the passwords on the routers etc, then connect everything backup.

What type of encryption are you using on your wireless network ?

Does your router have a firewall built in ?

regards

Ric

Hi ric,

Yeap my router has a firewall built into it and Im not sure about the type of encryption. So it is possible to hack into a Mac? I did do what you said for the first 24hrs but after that I just continued using it. After typing this I guess I will reinstall my OS.

Thanks

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

I would unplug all the computers from the internet and build a faraday cage ;-)

I was interested in this Faraday Cage thing and found this related info:

a Faraday cage can prevent the escape of the EM fields emitted by a cathode-ray-tube (CRT) computer monitor. Such fields can be intercepted and translated to allow hackers to remotely view on-screen data in real time without the need for wires, cables, or cameras. This practice, known as van Eck phreaking, can also be used by government officials to view the computer activities of known criminals and certain criminal suspects.

Van Eck phreaking



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