How can I prevent hacking?

[Kirie]

hi! it's me again ^^U

today I received an email from a forum that I stoped visiting more than a year ago and the email said "the forum is hacked, we have all your info and we'll use it if we don't have more than 800 visits to our site per day"

it really scared me!
it's not that I have much info around internet (I don't have a credit card or anything like that) and that forum only has my email address (which is private for the other members) but I supposse they can get my IP address and I don't know what could they do :s
I thought of a firewall, but I think that's only for viruses and trojans, right?

please, help me! I don't want to be hacked!

[Bricolage]

Installing a personal firewall would assist in preventing anyone on the outside from invading your computer.

But I'd just like to say that this email sounds really fishy. Like a gimick to scare users into posting. Have you reported this? Or have tried to delete your account on that forum? Because this is something that I've seen done on various forums. No one ended up being infected or getting hacked, but was frightened enough into getting the proper security needed and even posting a bit more.

So what I'd do is look into getting a personal firewall(to be on the safe side, and plus, it could end up helping you later on down the road.), and report this situation with a leader over at the forum. Because you shouldn't have to deal with this. And it may be happening to other members as well.

[dm.su]

hi! it's me again ^^U

today I received an email from a forum that I stoped visiting more than a year ago and the email said "the forum is hacked, we have all your info and we'll use it if we don't have more than 800 visits to our site per day"

it really scared me!
it's not that I have much info around internet (I don't have a credit card or anything like that) and that forum only has my email address (which is private for the other members) but I supposse they can get my IP address and I don't know what could they do :s
I thought of a firewall, but I think that's only for viruses and trojans, right?

please, help me! I don't want to be hacked!

Like Bricolage said, some e-mails use scare tactics to make you think they have something important of yours and ask you to do things i.e scam emails. So just ignore them.

But that message you received, "we've been hacked, come visit us" O_o if the forum has been hacked, why would the admin ask you to visit? Should have said like a warning that information might have been stolen i.e username, password and might need to change or do not come while we fix this etc. Or if the forum has been hijacked by others, why do they want you to visit a hacked forum 800 times? Makes no sense to me. Sounds like the forum is losing visitors and just scaring people to visit them.

If someone did manage to get your forum data, you don't have to worry, but it depends on what type of info you added. Username and e-mail address you signed up for can be changed. Password, if you use the same password for bank details, accounts anything important, change it straight away.

IP addresses can be seen by everyone and what it is, is like a number plate of car or the number of your house. IP addresses just tell what's the location of your isp and the region you're using the internet, not like the precise home address and all. It just uniquely identifies you on the internet.

Firewall is a program that monitors access coming in and out of your computer to internet/network. Like lots of road bridges from the city and out (your computer and internet) and the firewall are the many bridge toll booths letting cars in and out.

Anti-Virus - detect malicious code in a file/program. So you could use the road bridge example - a policeman at the toll booth inspects the cars if it carries illegal stuff etc and police monitoring the main city (your computer)

[Bricolage]

But that message you received, "we've been hacked, come visit us" O_o if the forum has been hacked, why would the admin ask you to visit? Should have said like a warning that information might have been stolen i.e username, password and might need to change or do not come while we fix this etc. Or if the forum has been hijacked by others, why do they want you to visit a hacked forum 800 times? Makes no sense to me. Sounds like the forum is losing visitors and just scaring people to visit them.

It's probably just a troll having a bit of "fun". It happens often, unfortunately.

But Kirie, like dm.su. said. Don't worry too much over this. If anything, the only thing this "hacker" could do is discover your IP address. It'd be (quite) hard for them to do anything as harmful as the extremity of hacking into your system.

If you still feel a little unnerved about the email, then your best bet is to install a firewall. It'll alert you of anything/anyone trying to make a connection that shouldn't be.

: )

[Kirie]

no, no... I think I said it wrong, gomen ^.^U... the email was sent by the administration address itself, and it said to visit another site... not the same forum! like this hacker group took control over the administrator's account! I visited the forum, and the last post by the adm. her/himself said something like "don't believe the adm, the forum is not working fine, we still have it under control... the adm only want's to win money by the ads..."
I really hope it's just a bad joke as you said! a really bad joke

he he, I really thought they could do a lot of things having my IP ad. ^///^ but you're right, it's not that difficult to get to know an IP... so if the password I used at that forum is not the same as my other paswords then everything should be fine, right? thanks Bricolage and thanks dm.su for teaching me that! I shouldn't be so scared! ^-^

well, then I need a firewall, right? that would help me to sleep well tonight? ^-^U even if it was a joke it wont harm me to have more protection
which firewalls do you recommend me? I read a topic about firewalls but a message said that firewalls are a bit hard to manage, and that confused me a bit :s
any help is welcome

[dm.su]

Ah, that makes sense - to visit another forum not the hacked forum lol

Yes that's right, as long as the password is not the same as the other passwords used for other sites, then it's fine.

From what I posted earlier about firewalls monitoring what comes in and out, the difficulty for some users is what goes out. Firewall will pop-up a message saying, "Do you want ... program to access the internet" or "This program is trying to connect to ... , do you wish to allow" and the user doesn't know whether to trust it or not and can usually lead to some programs to go wrong, no internet access etc

Some firewalls like ZoneAlarm try and help what the program is and gives a recommended action.

Hope that helps

[Kirie]

yes, that helps! thanks a lot
I'll try that program

[dm.su]

No problem

[Munemasa Katagiri]

Comodo is better than ZoneAlarm. It pass more leak tests.
www.comodo.com and it's fully free unlike ZA.
Change passwords often.