I recently received a suspicious alert on my laptop indicating that a potentially harmful program was trying to run after I installed a file. I didn't think much of it since it said it was handled. However, I woke up today to find that my Facebook and several other apps have been hacked, and I received notifications in my email about changing my passwords. What should I do next?
4 Answers
It sounds like you may have already lost access to those accounts, but try resetting your passwords and changing the emails tied to them, too. Since your PC might be infected, a full factory reset is a good move to clean it.
The first thing you should do is change all your passwords immediately. Make sure to use unique passwords for each account. If you're unable to recover some accounts, reach out to their support teams for help.
This kind of situation comes up a lot, so you're not alone. Quickly shut down your PC and then use a secure device to change your account passwords. Make sure to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) on your important accounts, especially email. After that, consider wiping your PC completely and installing a fresh version of Windows.
Definitely save only essential photos and videos onto a flash drive. It's really important to have backups in case of future issues—consider a 3-2-1 backup strategy: keep 3 copies of your data, on 2 different media, with 1 off-site. After backing up, reinstall Windows with a fresh install flash drive, and don’t forget to change all your passwords and set up 2FA!
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