Reformatting the hard drive and re installing the OS might not be a bad idea.
other options off the top of my head:
make sure your firewall is turned on. On Windows (I’m just assuming you’re on Windows) Go to Start - Control Panel - System and Security - Windows Firewall. On the left toolbar there’s an option “Turn Windows Firewall on or off”
Make sure you have an antivirus installed. There’s plenty of free ones available. I’ve had good luck with AVG, Microsoft Security Essentials, and Avast!. Plenty of options, lots of options, take your pick.
MalwareBytes - will help find viruses and malware the antivirus misses.
Spybot - gets rid of spyware installed on your computer
KeePass or LastPass - Both free password managers. make a single super strong password for you to remember and it stores the rest. Even allows up to 256 randomly generated passwords
Encrypt your sensitive files. Personally I use TrueCrypt, but in the last few months they’ve stopped updating the program. There’s been a lot of speculation the US government made them stop because they couldn’t break the encryption, but you can take that as you wish. There’s other options too, but I don’t remember what they are and haven’t used them personally.
Route your internet traffic through a VPN if possible. It helps keep your data secure and hidden, though I haven’t set this up yet and can’t assist much.
TOR - also known as onion routing. it’s an online community designed to stay hidden online. be aware, just researching it puts you on the NSA’s radar as a person of interest. If you’d like, I can send an installer instead of you researching it yourself. I know I’m on the list already, so I’m not worried about it.
Run a virtual Linux environment, or dual boot your computer. Linux is much harder to hack into and hack than Windows is. You can either dual boot your computer so when the computer turns on you can choose which operating system you want to run. Otherwise, you can run Virtualbox or VMWare. It creates a virtual computer inside your existing operating system. You can install linux or any other operating system inside of this, as if it was a physical computer. (Supposedly researching linux puts you on the NSA radar as well. Not surprisingly)
I know I’m missing a few simple options, but I can’t think of them right now. Feel free to message me with questions and I’ll see if I can help
This is excellent advice! A few details:
I’m on a Mac, and it’s been my main and only computer for the past 8 months, so Mac alternatives for many of these programs would be hella useful.
I ran a few antivirus and antispyware programs in the past few hours, and apparently my computer is virus and spyware-free. I can’t say I trust this, though.
I’ve tried the VPN thing, but without success. I’ll look better into it and inform myself on how to set it up.
I’ve used Tor before, and I still have it installed on my computer, but I stopped using it halfway through the semester because of security concerns. I used mostly to download books and certain music while on campus, and I’ve kinda looked around the deep web, but I think I’ve never visited a regular page through it.
The whole dual booting sounds interesting, but honestly I never tried it because I had no reason to do so. I might do it this time, this is breaking my balls.
This is awesome advice for people with security concerns.
ugh, a mac user. alright I’ll see what I can do.
Firewall: http://www.macinstruct.com/node/165
keepass and lastpass both have mac versions available on their respective download pages.
for the spybot, a lot of people on the forums are saying you don’t need it for macs because they’re so “secure” (hahahahaha … . sorry, couldn’t help it). I just don’t like macs, and they’re not as secure as most people think. Loads better than Windows though. Same thing with malwarebytes.
Since macs are unix based, they are inherently more secure than Windows is. If somebody did manage to get a virus or a trojan inside your computer, they’d need access to your root account. which if you suspect they’ve been monitoring you for some time, it’s not out of the question. I’m not sure the best way to fix this issue (again, macs).
what I do for Tor is run a virtual machine of a linux distro and run tor from there. that way if I do get hacked while surfing around in the slightly more nefarious areas of the deepweb they only see an empty OS, not my full computer.
for macs, look into Bootcamp for dual booting. I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, but being a Mac it’s probably pricey. I think that’s just for dual booting windows, so you’ll have to research that.
Reblogging this for the really, really useful information. Stay safe.
Currently setting up Bootcamp and I guess I'll surf the web using Tor from there. What it's kind of a nuisance is the speed. I really don't surf the darknet so much other than for books and sometimes music, so I'll most be accessing the clearnet through it, but if it keeps me safe, well, sacrificing speed is something I'm willing to do at this point.
