Ok, I admit the title sounds funny, but I assure you I’m talking about a computer virus. Here’s what happened. On a car trip to New York, I decided to stop off at a “cheap motel” in Pennsylvania. 30 dollars a night, nothing fancy, but they did have free wifi. So I logged on to the wifi, and used skype to save on the cell bill. Little did I know my computer was being hacked. Apparently the wifi connection I was on had, to be honest I don’t know what you call it, but somehow somebody in the motel was able to see that I was on their network and they were attempting to log into my computer without my knowledge. They succeeded, cracked my password, got in, took over my computer. I even saw my mouse move on it’s own, and saw it click on a .exe file and that was that. Next thing I see is a bar saying “downloading”. Downloading what, I don’t know, but I assumed it was my computer files, and that’s when I decided to close my computer. But the computer didn’t go to sleep when I closed it, so I tried to turn it off. The shut down was grey out. I couldn’t even click on it. I turned it over and took out the battery, and of course it shut down then. About 5 minutes later, I put the battery back in and started it back up, and when I went to start it, a nice little screen came up saying “Thanks for the information”. I was hacked. And it was MY FAULT.
This irritated me, of course. The motel I was staying at probably had about 50-60 rooms and there was no way to tell who did it. So I closed my computer back up, got in my car, and headed to the Best Buy across the street. It was about 6pm, so I was lucky on my timing and I talked to the geek squad and they went to work on my computer. They of course fixed it, but what they explained to me was the the beginning of my antivirus knowledge.
They told me, I of course didn’t have real time anti virus protection, and I didn’t have a firewall set up. Firewall, I asked? YES. Firewalls stop any incoming and outgoing connections that you have not authorized. He showed me how it works what to approve and not approve, and he showed me the ins and outs of the virus program. I did have something I am quite proud of though. I had a back up of all my data. Not that it was much. But it had the programs I like and what not, so putting my computer back together was easier.
After about 3 hours and Best Buy was closing I went back to my motel. And logged back on to the wifi they had, and sure enough about 20 minutes after I logged back on, I got a notice from my firewall app asking me to authorize the incoming anonymous user wanting to connect to my machine….I just sat there and was amazed. I couldn’t believe they tried it again…actually yes I could, but I loved that I was prepared this time, and I simply said “do not authorize”, and that was that. Little bit later another connection came in trying to gain access to my machine, but Spyware Doctor let me know and I blocked them again. I loved it. Nothing else came in after that, and I logged in all my online accounts and changed the passwords I had, figuring “they” might have gotten them, and I was all good.
Imagine if that was my main computer and all my personal information and financial information was on there!!!!! I can’t! People anyone can gain access to your computer unless you stop them. If they do get in, they can place keyloggers and anything else they want…unless you stop them. You need real time protection. And you get that from a proven firewall software and a proven antivirus, spyware removal application. And I’ve tried many, and I’m never as satisfied as I am with Spyware Doctor. This happened to me almost 6 years ago, and I’ve never received a virus from a cheap motel , or anywhere for that matter since!
I was just searching for firewall information, and saw this in google. The title made me laugh. Thanks for making me smile.