I think that a lot of people trust in their installed security programs and never heard about rootkits. You could have got some of them in your operative system: windows, linux…
It’s more probable that you could have some of them if you use windows o.s., in this case your security is compromised yet. Your security software: antivirus, firewall, antispyware, etc… means nothing. Someone could be controlling your machine and you will never know it.
If someone is able to install in your computer a rootkit, then you need to delete it but sometimes the unique solution is to format your hard disk and installing your o.s. again.
Remember: It doesn’t exist 100% security.
I recommend you to visit this webpage: http://www.antirootkit.com/ and download some of these antirootkit programs to check your computer.
I recommend these ones if you use windows o.s.:
- F-Secure Blacklight Beta
- Panda Anti-Rootkit (Tucan)
- RootKit Detective
- AVG AntiRootkit
- Rootkit-Revealer
If you use GNU/Linux or bsd you can install from your repositories one of these tools:
- chkrootkit
- Rootkit Hunter
For Macintosh:
- OS X Rootkit Hunter
You will be surprised how many invisible applications or hooked processes you could have been running. But be careful, some security programs use to hook some of your applications to work properly. Read from google if you find suspicious/invisible applications running inside your o.s.
Read some more about rootkits (remember: google is your friend). You can also visit this Blog: http://www.antirootkit.com/blog/
There is another solution: use a live cd: knoppix is the first and one of the best, although there are a lot of these live-cds out there (most of them use GNU/Linux o.s. and they are very easy to use).
Nobody can install a malicious program into your cd, but be careful: you must take some other precautions surfing internet: phishing, redirections, etc.
