My phone rings. "My laptop is fried." Gary says to me over his static phone. "Ever since I connected to the network at the airport I've been getting anywhere from a dozen to two dozen pop-ups every time I connect to the web, not to mention it's ten times slower and shuts down every once in a while for no reason."

"I'll take a look at it. Just stay off the net until you come over." I instruct.

Gary walks through the door holding his new Toshiba Satellite on his right hip, trying to hide the look of sullen defeat on his face with a smile. We turn on his failing machine and, after ten minutes or so, we have the classic version of Windows looking us in the face.

"It never used to look like that." Gary expresses with genuine puzzlement. I assume whoever hacked his computer preferred this version (or just wanted to mess with Gary).

I turn off the wireless card and install two anti-spyware tools (Ad-Aware SE and Spy-Bot Search & Destroy) from a CD. Ad-Aware finds 55 malicious threats, leaving only 4 to be secured by Spy-Bot. While it only took one threat to change the settings in his laptop, any of these threats could have been causing a number of alternative issues (like the sluggishness or excessive pop-ups). Then something occurred to me.

"Have you been doing any online banking?" I ask.

"Yeah, but my bank has a secure website so I'm good right?"

I drop my chin to my chest and tell Gary to get on the phone with his bank to find out if there has been any unapproved activity.

Now on the phone, Gary's eyes open wide as he sits down. That sullen look of defeat was now exploding into rage.

"They never got at my bank account but they cleared out my credit cards. I need to wait for a call now to see if it's too late for me to claim the purchases under their stolen card policy."

Once Gary finishes on the phone, and some more sweeps are done, we proceed by clearing his private data and properly securing his laptop with a good firewall and threat detection software.

After many thanks, Gary runs down to the bank and - just to be safe - discontinues all ties. Now I see him at my bank on Mondays.

Learn more about this author, Neil B. Sparkes.
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