I suspect I've been hacked but I'm not sure

[Andromedat]

My husband thinks I'm being paranoid but my gut tells me we have been hacked. I see a red computer id flash in my security tab for internet explorer and as soon as I notice it, it disappears never reappearing again until the next time I'm back online. I'll see the red computer address under the users in security tab again every now and then... I think I've been hacked. Am I being a paranoid spaz?

 

[COLGeek]

Locking down your network would prevent unauthorized access. As mentioned, using WPA2 with a strong password would help. You should also set up, in your router, the MAC addresses of allowed devices. This will prevent leeches as well. Be sure you change your router admin password as well and disable external access to the router itself. Further, I would also disable wireless users from being able to administer the router.

 

[scout_03]

adding this for the router settings do not use any dictionnary name and put a capital letter and a number in the password .

 

[Andromedat]

Is your wireless network secure? Have you changed the password recently?

I hope it's secure I changed the password and decided to hide the network about two months ago. How often do you change your passwords?

 

[Paul NZ]

You do not need to remove Norton to use Malwarebytes. They will happily co-exist.

You really should consider using another browser (Firefox, Chrome, even Opera) because IE is literally full of holes and exploits.

The others are just as bad

 

[Andromedat]

Ok... please feel free to ignore this. I'm going to vent into space:
Like the paranoid spaz that I am, I'm chronically checking under my security tab for the mysterious set of red numbers to reappear. I still have no clue what it was... since all my scans show nothing. It is possible that I'm chasing my own tail and this is the remnant of a legitimate program in my computer? or Maybe the worst of my fears are true... some person out there knows when I'm away and is joyriding my pc when I'm asleep. If that's the case... is there anything else I can do besides putting my router on standby whenever it's not in use?

if malware bytes didnt find anything you are most likely not being hijacked unless your pc has RDP enabled to allow people in and someone is accessing your network via wifi and has your login info.

you could monitor your wireless router and see all the devices on there and even use mac filtering and only give access to your devices to connect if you really want. also make sure you have encryption enabled preferably wpa2 since wpa and wep can be cracked

Thanks for your suggestions. It looks like RDP is not enabled but I'll definitely look into mac filtering

 

[Reese_Myersss]

I had some ad/spyware on my computer a while ago, and it wasn't detected by Norton, malwarebytes or windows defender.
So what i did and i strongly suggest you do, is go through your documents/downloads, think back to when you first started having these issues, and delete any suspicious programs that you don't need or have never heard of.

Most likely this malicious software (If there even is any) is held in one of these programs.

 

[Andromedat]

I had some ad/spyware on my computer a while ago, and it wasn't detected by Norton, malwarebytes or windows defender.
So what i did and i strongly suggest you do, is go through your documents/downloads, think back to when you first started having these issues, and delete any suspicious programs that you don't need or have never heard of.

Most likely this malicious software (If there even is any) is held in one of these programs.

Thanks for the help. I will definitely check out my downloads and remove anything I don't need.