With all that security, I'ts hard to imagine a hacker going thru your system. I lean toward a worm/virus in your system. Usually when files disappear or get moved around your system , its a sign of a worm. Viruses usually destroy main files with in result will cause your system to crash.
Run a compleate virus scan on your entire system, maybe you are over looking something.

Thanks Apocalypse_67, will do that again and maybe go online to another software maker and do an online one. It's just annoying, as I hope it doesn't mean another clean installation - will be the third for the year if so! >

Um.... these days some worms and viri can disable your own virus protection. To be really sure, go to a good on-line virus scan and run that. Norton has one, McAfee does too. They are free.

Dude formatting is the best solution u should do it about every 3 months if needed it helps trust me

Hmmm...losing icons and files....are you sure you're not just clumsy and forget where you put things?....

 

#3 by goodmorphing - 5/19/2003 1:02:05 AM Um.... these days some worms and viri can disable your own virus protection. To be really sure, go to a good on-line virus scan and run that. Norton has one, McAfee does too. They are free.

Listen to GM.  I had a worm on my home machine that disabled Norton, put exclusions in it for all the places it spread itself to, and then took over the auto-update files so that Norton couldn't pull updates to get rid of it.

I would suggest running Mcafee's online virus scan.  It's free to scan with, but you have to pay for it to get rid of the infected files.

#4 by Citizen ponz14 - 5/19/2003 4:56:26 AM Dude formatting is the best solution u should do it about every 3 months if needed it helps trust me

What?!  I wouldn't follow that advise.  There are *very* few times that you should ever have to reformat.  It's just a waste of time and energy. 

The worm that I got on my machine was the first one that I ever got at home, and I've never been hacked.  It also took no time at all to recover from it.  Reformatting and restoring would have taken days with no better results than just cleaning the worm.

robsvoyage hacking isn't a simple thing, the most hackers around these they are 13 yo children who has seen the movie 'hackers' to much. A hacker woulnd't be intrested in hacking your system, a true hacker wants a challange, something like the wincustomize server

if you don't download illegal software its hard to imagine you have a 'worm' or virus, it also can come trough mail, but if yo scan your system, your virus scanner should come up with something, if it dasn't, just read post #5

I run Norton Systemworks 2003 and Norton Personal Firewall 2003 and keep them updated at all times. Several times people have tried to send me a virus or worm in an email and it has been destroyed by Norton Antivirus before it could be downloaded to my computer. Also, most hackers use some type of scanner to just go through a whole range of IP addresses looking for an opening. They don't specifically target YOUR computer but if their scanner detects a way in they will take it. My NPF detects numerous attempts every single day of people trying to hack into my computer using Trojan horses usually and gives me detailed reports of each attempt including the IP address of the person making the attempt. They come from all over the world and many of them are right here in my local area on the same ISP as myself. I complained to my ISP about this but they couldn't care less about it and did absolutely nothing. If you have a broadband connection and don't take adequate measures to protect yourself you are leaving yourself open to all sorts of malicious attacks.

are you running adaware and spybot? your machine could be clogged with all that spy garbage that attaches to your system and can do some really goofy stuff to your puter.

It's quite common to get hacked, but most of the time, people who hack into your system mainlynwant to set up a FTP site to use your computer as a warez server. It's happened to me twice before, and I ended up with a few gigabytes of MP3's and pirated applications.  I have since then installed Zone Alarm and that took care of that.  Using just XP's built-in firewall doesn't cut it, that's what I had before.

So, in short, hackers aren't interested into deleting files and shortcuts on your system, they want to use your system for warez. So I doubt that's what your problem is.

They should make a virus scanner, that when you are being hacked, you get the popup with the ip, and press a buton named 'counter atack'

Ive used McAfee Personal Firewall Plus which has a cool little tracking function built in so you can see where the presumed hack attempt originated from. I quit using when we got DSL cause it wasnt compatible. But when I had it, It worked quite well and stopped all sorts of unwanted communications. I use McAfee VirusScan Online on the desktops and Norton Anti-Virus 2003 on my laptop. Id rather have McAfee Virus Scan 7 Pro, but then again, Its not really worth it cause Norton works just fine.

A good little program to have is The Cleaner, will do a scan for Trojans only which most Anti-Virus software won't detect

Styl Skinner: if you don't download illegal software its hard to imagine you have a 'worm' or virus, it also can come trough mail, but if yo scan your system, your virus scanner should come up with something, if it dasn't, just read post #5

See my post above about the worm that I had that took out Norton.  Worms are a lot trickier than they used to be.  They typically install backdoors.

You can get viruses (especially worms) from more sources than email and files.  They propagate through shared drives, some through remote desktop when you connect local drives, and some can even get to you from infected websites if you don't have proper security.  Read up on that type of information on the support pages of virus protection software.

If you are curious about where pings and port probes come from, check out BlackIce.  It will also allow you to ban IP addresses when they become bothersome.  It also tells you the severity of that action that is happening.  Some behavior that looks like a hack is actually normal behavior.

Paxx is correct, however.  Hackers want to place warez on your machine and use you as a file server.  They typically go after anonymous FTPs on company servers, however (more space and bandwidth).

Thanks for all the info guys! Wiped both of my drives using Iolo drivescrubber (took 4 hours combined!) and then performed a fresh install. Being a touch paranoid now, all security has been boosted, as I am on cable. I think I was infected by a suss email. lol Jafo!