There is a "better way" to check, but first, you really need to copy all your files (music, video, documents) off the computer onto DVDs, or CDs, or an external hard drive, or a portable hard drive.
Make a full list of all software programs you had installed, free and paid for. Look for the activation codes for any software you had to pay for.
After that, get your factory software disks, then erase your hard drive with a program like KillDisk. This will completely remove any computer virus software and malware (malicious software). This is the only way to ensure the malware is gone.
Then use the factory software disks and re-install the factory software, and set your computer up again. Reinstall all the programs you used to run.
And start over. It's faster than trying to remove the malicious software and continuing to worry about the presence of malware.
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Is your information/identity safe ? Probably not. You can change your bank account passwords - the best way is to go to the bank and notifiy them in person of your problem, and ask to change the password. They are well aware that the criminals use every possible tactic to get malware onto peoples' computers. Regarding out-of-town banks and ebay/paypal, that will take a little longer. I suggest you review their websites for what they advise doing about your accounts there.
Other people's cards have been used on your computer ? Notify them immediately, and have them do the same thing you are doing.
Social Security Numbers ? Now you are in a heap of trouble. Criminals can take a name, ssn, and a birthdate and begin impersonating that person almost immediately. Therefore, get a free credit report from the three credit reporting agencies - if you get a report from one now, then four months later a report from another, and then four months later a report from the last one, you can repeat this process next year and it will only cost you postage and an envelope (if you mail in the request). This free credit report is mandated by federal law.
This free credit report - any credit report - will not tell you if a criminal has opened any bank accounts in your name, but if they apply for a credit card in your name, eventually you will find out. There are credit monitoring services that claim to monitor for you, but you have to pay for them, usually about 100 dollars a year. I have not used one so I can make no comments.
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Wikipedia article about the
"Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_and_Accurate_Credit_Transactions_Act
Wikipedia article about the website for a free annual credit report:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annualcreditreport.com
The website Annualcreditreport.com
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp
Look for the link that says
"you can request your report through the mail"
and on that page are the instructions, mailing address, and a link to the downloadable request form in Adobe PDF.
I suggest mailing in your request because you can easily make a copy for future reference, which you can shred after you receive the report.
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Now for the hard part - the criminals are working very hard to steal through bank accounts. Brian Krebs has been tracking a lot of this, focusing on businesses that get stolen from as the amounts stolen are huge. He runs a website where he has posted several stories, and each story has a forum for readers to add comments or ask questions. I suggest you read all articles. If you want to make comments or ask questions, use the newest articles as most of us who read regularly don't revisit old articles.
Krebsonsecurity :
http://krebsonsecurity.com
Wikipedia article about Brian Krebs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Krebs
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Now for the better way - get a Live CD of a Linux distribution like Ubuntu, use that to boot your computer, and then access your online accounts. Any malware on your computer cannot run because it requires Windows, and booting with the Linux CD completely ignores the Windows operating system.
You can then access your accounts over the Internet and change the passwords on all of your accounts, thus making it impossible for any criminals to access your accounts after that date.
Be sure the passwords are long (10 to 14 characters) and a mixmash of letters and numbers.
Make sure that if you use letters that look the same in lower case and upper case, that you very carefully write them down so you will know exactly which case you used. And make sure each character is very distinct.
For example, these characters often look alike when written by hand - my hand, that is:
The letter "U" and letter "V".
The letter "O" and numeral "0".
The letter "I" and numeral "1".
The letter "S" and numeral "5".
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Last piece of advice - if you just gotta go to those "free movie/tv" sites, use a completely separate computer. You can get used computers for very little cost. Create an email address for just those web accounts. When using that computer make sure it is the only one on your Internet connection, because if there are other computers all connected on a network, which is connected to the Internet, any malicious software on it might try to propogate itself to the other computers. You can also use this computer to experiment with free anti-malware programs.
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