Hello all. I am writing to help me with this because i am not a programmer and i can’t do anything about it. Last week he just placed his Flash Drive and managed to destroy my password (which had many numbers,symbols and letters) he transfer them to my PC. Unfortunately i can’t find these files because i don’t know the name type of the files. Fortunately for me i just went to his PC and just found the files on his desktop, so i got a screenshot of them.
Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/7zhRf
I am 100% sure that he is controlling my PC and it’s so annoying. whenever he just shuts down my PC or restart it. He is killing some apps (example: game) and i can’t do anything. i can’t even find the process to kill it or even find the programs in my PC to delete them eventually.
I would appreciate a lot if someone helps me!
Thank you in advance!
The first thing I would do is open up Task Manager on your PC. Next, view the processes that are running. If any of them have similar names to the ones in the screenshot. Click on Open File Location or something similar to that. It should open up a file explorer which has those files in there. While you have the file explorer opened, I would try to end the task for those files because if you try to delete the files while they are running, it’ll just prompt you a message saying that they are running and that you need to reboot to do action on them. So don’t reboot. Once you have confirmed those processes are gone from your Task Manager, you can safely delete those files. Remove those files from the Recycle Bin as well to ensure full deletion.
After you have done the cleaning, now you should put a password on your account. I would say one that your brother doesn’t know. Something that has no relevance to you nor your brother. People can easily get hacked because people tend to use pass phrases that seem to stick to them and that are easy to remember. Typically, weak passwords are a birthdate, a loved one, your favorite car model, what you like doing. Everything that connects to you, your brother can easily hack into. That is why a lot of my passwords have no relevance to me nor my family. Moreover, I would personally setup a BIOS password. This way, he can’t get onto your PC on boot. He’ll have to type in a password before getting into the OS. Next, I would personally set a new password a password on the hard-drive. I’ve used Diskcryptor before to do so. But the bad thing is, if you encrypt your hard-drive, it’ll be trash. So just setting the password on the hard-drive is enough. Though this is stupid because it’s a default password. You can’t change it unless you encrypt your hard-drive. So personally, I’d just set the default password. He won’t even know it.
So now you have 3 passwords he has to go through.
BIOS Password
Hard-drive Password
Account Password
All of these, I’ve done before and they are active on my personal laptop and desktop. All 3 of these passwords for me have no relevance whatsoever to each other. My BIOS password is a 9 character long password with numbers and letters. My hard-drive password is the default password. My account password is an entirely different password that makes no sense if you were to crack it since it doesn’t have any relevance to the other two passwords.
That is how you’ll be able to keep your brother out of your stuff. If he takes out your hard-drive, he has to go through the hard-drive password. If he boots it up on your laptop, he has to go through the BIOS password. So it’ll be super hard for him to go through all that protection if he doesn’t know what you did.
Thank you for the great reply! I also have a few questions.
Once i tried to find the programs from the Task Manager when he killed one app which i was using but i couldn’t find any process which had a similar name of the files. He also shut down my PC and no error appeared. Can i prevent him from shutting down my PC? And when should i search at the Task Manager for the apps? And when should i create these passwords when i delete his programs from my PC or will be there are problem if i create them when his programs are still in my PC? Are there any risks of making these passwords?
I just wanted to mention that too.
Yesterday i turned my PC on i knew that he booted his Flash Drive in my PC. Then i saw that he changed my PC password and all my accounts (Facebook, YouTube, Gmail and other) were logged out.
Before that all my accounts were saved and i get automatically logged in.And also my PC is slower from Yesterday.
download a linux live disc/usb (slax is pretty good if you want it on a usb pen) and use that. He won’t even know your computer is on https://www.slax.org/ let alone be able to do anything on it. If you always boot from usb when you are done just take the usb stick with you.
Can you still get on? If you can, open up the Task Manager again. This time, go to the Service tab. At the bottom, there should be a link like option that says Open Services. Click on it and it open up a new window displaying all the services and their status. Look for ones that have similar names to the ones on your brother’s flash drive. If you can’t seem to find a thing, open up a new file explorer. Next, in the search bar at the top right, search for Brother. Windows will look for all files that contain the keywords brother. Case is no issue for this search. If you can find the location, then delete it immediately. If you can’t, your best bet is to backup the important files like your Users folder onto an external HD. Also, write down all the programs you’ve installed either by looking at it in Control Panel or in the Program Files folder in the root of your C drive. Once you have backed up your files, I would recommend doing a clean installation.
Also, most people don’t know, but you can actually download a copy of Windows from Microsoft. So no boot legged version. It’s a legitimate Windows version from Microsoft. It usually comes in a launcher. Forgot the name of it. But you extract the Windows.iso file from the internet using that launcher. The only thing that isn’t free is the license key.
Back to the steps. Format the hard drive so that no files are left hanging. Because if you just install a new Windows on the current one you have, it’ll just pretty much replace some files and then move all your old files to Windows.old. This isn’t a safe idea. So I recommend formatting it so there’s completely no files or data on it. Then you can install Windows on it.
Linux is another operating system. However, installing Linux won’t address the issue unless you address it yourself. Again, this goes back to the steps I have mentioned above.
Surely this will address most of the issues as assuming the OP is using windows, if you then run linux from a usb stick his brother won’t be able to run any program to shut the computer down remotely or access anything whilst using linux. If you only save files to the USB (or in the cloud) the hdd in the computer become irrelevant (especially if you are going to format the hdd anyway). Perhaps even install a full version of linux like Ubuntu as the Brother is unlikely to be able to hack in linux as well as windows (possible but unlikely). I think i am correct in saying linux tends to be more secure in normal user mode, although could be wrong.
Whilst re-installing a clean version of windows and locking it down is a good idea if the Brother gets access again the OP will be in the same situation.
Alternatively to be really clever, re-install windows and make it as safe as you can using the above and then still use linux from a live usb stick. If you create a small ext2/3 partition on the hdd to store stuff windows won’t see it so the brother won’t even know it’s there if he gets access somehow. But probably overkill.
[quote]The laws relating to computer hacking vary from region to region.
Broadly speaking, it’s typically illegal to access a private computer
system unless you have the express permission of the individual
or organization the system belongs to.[/quote]
Depending upon your age, I would suggest that you either
get your parents or the law to positively point out the error
of his ways to this miscreant sibling.
Not really. Everything revolves back to the current state of the OP’s Windows. If you were to just plainly do an installation of Linux, what do you have to do first? Back up your files right? Then why not diagnos it using what I have said since you’re going to be backing up files on the current Windows? Like I said, everything revolves back around the current state of the Windows. Also, I don’t honestly think this is the appropriate time for OP to learn any new OS. If the OP doesn’t know how to properly setup Linux, it could probably go bad, maybe even worse than the current Windows state. It would be worse if the OP doesn’t know what to do in Linux and then some how, the OP’s brother got a hold of his root password.
While I agree Linux is the better option, I don’t think it is the better option for the OP.
that’s why i’d leave it as is and boot linux from a usb stick. Brother wouldn’t know any better and assume he had the same access. If he checked it would still be there but the OP would be bypassing it each time. Hopefully leaving the computer alone.
Admittedly a bit of a learning curve but not a lot more than having to re-install a clean copy of windows and upgrading all of the security required including passwording the bios.
But yes if sticking with windows i agree with all of the above.
Thank you all for the replies i really appreciate! So i managed to find the files on my PC.
So i am thinking should i delete them immediately?
If i delete the files should i re-install Windows or create these 3 passwords which you told me?
Which is better to create these 3 passwords or boot linux from a usb stick?
If i delete these files i think my brother would still come and remove my password and put the files again on my PC.
No. Just delete those files and then delete them from the Recycle Bin to ensure they are definitely deleted. Next, set a stronger password on your Windows. Something that your brother won’t know or even guess. Next, I’d install an antivirus and set a rule inside the antivirus to block all actions from file names that end in the ones in the screenshot. Next, I’d highly recommend setting a BIOS password if I was you. I believe he is setting the hidden administrator on. In the past, Windows used to have a hidden administrator account that you can toggle on or off. But the only way to toggle it is from the command prompt. And it’s super easy if he’s got a bootable USB that has any Windows version. This is why setting the BIOS password is best. You can’t boot anything up even CD ROMs if there’s a BIOS password.
I don’t think bringing in legal help is necessary and is actually accessive for a little problem. If the OP’s relationship with their brother is not rocky, but just horsing around, I think bringing in the law is more than accessive. I’ve seen families destroyed because of this.
@basketbola32 if you haven’t already deleted those files, you should actually look for those file locations to see if anything else is lurking in there. AppData is a hidden folder so you’d want to press ALT if you’re using Windows 7. If you’re using Windows 10, then double click on the toolbar. It should bring up a drop-down menu. Look for “See hidden folders and files”. You can then navigate to those folder by going to C:/Users/username/AppData/.
