Can somebody remotely control your computer even if you have a firewall up and Remote Assistance turned off?

Question

I had a bizzare incident where my cursor intelligently moved on it's own. It wasn't a glitch on my laptop touchpad (no mouse was hooked up), because it moved down to the task bar, right-clicked Wordpad and selected Close, then moved up to the save dialouge box and selected "No." Someone or something was controling it. The firewall was on, and Remote Assistance was turned off. I had no virus or spyware come up when I did a search afterwards. I was, however, on a wireless connection on an unsecure network (but I was at my house and no other wireless networks are near), and filesharing was turned on so that I could send files to another computer my house. I was composing lyrics for a song about being watched when this occured, and the only program I had open was Wordpad. The activity would start when I tried to continue typing, as if reacting to me. The activity stopped once I turn off my wireless network card. Please help my find a natural explanation for why this would happen!!

Answer 1

somebody is apparently playing with you, by using a VNC client that is installed at your end, they can have full control over your machine. it doesn't need a firewall permission nor a remote assistance component.. you can use a spyware removal tool such as Spyware Doctor ( http://www.pctools.com/spyware-doctor/ ) to detect and remove any hidden vnc agents

to learn more about how VNC works, go to http://www.tightvnc.com

Answer 2

Well, one you were so deep into your lyrics that you started believing them!!! Or, a few years back "nuking" was popular, where you could work around a firewall and control a user's programs. I used to watch my uncle do it and start typing to people in wordpad or the like. Was kinda funny at the time.

P.S. Windows firewall is a joke, more of a nuisance than a protector. Get zone alarm pro. It works a whole lot better

Answer 3

if your computer has already been hacked and has some malware that has become installed on it, then even if you now have a firewall up and remote assistance turned off, the malware could allow someone to take over the computer.

basically the malware program could connect outward through your firewall (which the firewall would happily allow, since it is a connection from the inside to the outside) to a remote server, and then the attacker could control the computer over that connection.

Answer 4

You might have allowed a program on your computer to DO this. Review your allowed programs in your firewall setting.

Also, you should run Ad-aware and SpyBot Search & Destroy. These two programs are available for FREE at Download.com.

USE only a SECURED connection with your wireless router.

Good luck.

Answer 5

Some new phones have Bluetooth software where you can use it as a mouse, that might have been it, but I'm not really sure what happened. You definately need to secure your wireless network though, especially if you're the only one nearby since everyone will be piggy-backing onto yours.

Answer 6

go to trendmicros free virus scan and use the antispy and scan for all then delete this worm or trojan theres more weird stuff out there ive seen a whole harddrive disappear infront of me as i cleaned the computer

Answer 7

dont worry, sometimes cops will enter your computer (they have expert hackers) and explore for a while to see if you are a bad guy

Answer 8

Yes. It is possible. There's always a way!