info taken from laptop

[Francesca]

Before I post my situation can I just say I get the best advice here in this forum than anywhere else and I am grateful for all the information I have gotten in the past so to whomever responds to this thank you very much in advance!

Yesterday I attempted to login to my ebay account and was told at the login that my password was incorrect and immediately believed someone had gone in and changed it but could not imagine how. I have a long and random password and am absolutely certain I was never lured into a phishing attempt so could not imagine how someone would have gotten it. I was able to contact ebay and let them know i believed someone had hijacked my account and found out that was in fact the case and that they had changed my password and redirected email to a new address which was my full [e-mail]. I straightened this out and changed my yahoo/ebay and paypal passwords. In an email from ebay they addressed 3 possible ways this could have happened 1)phishing (and thats not the case here) 2) someone in my household (not the case) and 3) a virus that captures my info... My laptop has been sluggish the last few weeks so I have determined it must be the third option. I use internet explorer and have not downloaded any security patches... I use Nortons everyday and Lavasoft Ad-Aware daily. After changing my passwords I ran both and no viruses where detected and only some minor problems that Lavasoft found...

Here are my questions:
1) could I still have a virus that Nortons is not detecting?
I am nervous that changing my passwords was futile...
2) could this have something to do with a vulnerability with Explorer?
3) Is there another way someone got my info?
4) what should I do next?

Perhaps I am blowing this out of proportion but I was in a 3 week period robbed personally and via the internet on 2 other unrelated issues and am starting to feel truly paranoid and frustrated...
Thanks again in advance... you people are the greatest whoever you are!!!!

[jayfish]

1. A Couple Of Possibilities.

1) You have a root kit hiding on your PC. In which case:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit
2) You have a trojan on your PC. In this case check to see what type of trojan protection your version or Norton has. If it has none, un-install it, then download and install AVast!. Do a full system scan and remove the offenders.

Jay

[Angry Girl]

3. Download F-Secure BlackLight beta for rootkit elimination

http://www.f-secure.com/blacklight/

[landdaddy]

2. Don't have all the answers

but I think it would be best for you to reformat and reinstall windows first. Internet Explorer is very vulnerable and you should switch to either Firefox or Opera as they are more secure. Opera over Firefox IMO.
Ditch Norton and find something else as Norton is a resource hog. Don't have freebie recommendations on that but other DUer's will.
For freeware programs to help you in that regard check here: http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/freeware.html
Good luck!

[Crazy Guggenheim]

4. Hello Francesca. Try this.

First, get all the updates for your antispyware software. Then go to www.pcworld.com and get Spybot, a trial version Spysweeper and get the updates. Then reboot into Safe Mode then run Spysweeper then Ad-Aware then Spybot. One thing, Click on Start - Control Panel - Folder Optons - View. Make sure that Show All Folders is checked. Click OK. Then reboot into Safe mode and run the software.

Here are my questions:
1) could I still have a virus that Nortons is not detecting?
I am nervous that changing my passwords was futile...
2) could this have something to do with a vulnerability with Explorer?
3) Is there another way someone got my info?
4) what should I do next?

1 - Yes. Any and all of the Anti-virus products are not perfect.
2 - Yes. Also get your updates from Microsoft.
3 - E-Bay could have been cracked. There *are* occasional security flaws with E-Bay.
4 - Scan your system as above. As one poster mentioned, backup your system, format the harddrive and reinstall. However, make sure all your data is scanned for viruses and pests before its backed up.