Security of Yahoo/AIM

[heymrdj]

My friend is worried it is possible for someone to hack out her location through her sn on Yahoo or AIM. She uses it on both her computer and mobile. Is there any possiblity to it? I told her there isn't.

[kev7555]

When it comes to a good hacker, nothing is impossible. Just protect your computers with a good anti-virus like AVG, several anti-spyware programs (AdAware SE, Spybot Search and Destroy and Spywareblaster), use a hardware firewall (a router is nice) and Windows XP firewall. Keep updated with all current security patches from MS Windows update.

f you are really worried, there are plenty of websites devoted to teaching you how to turn off unnecessary services in windows XP and how to manage open ports. It's all in how far you want to go with it.

Any time you are engaging in peer to peer networks or instant messaging you are opening your computer to others. That's just the way it is.


-Kev

[heymrdj]

Well I know a hacker could do that...but her computer is well protected, I know I did it myself :P. Norton Systemworks plus a Linksys Router, AdAware, and Spybot S&D.

Its not like she's really scared, she hasn't done anything to make her a target. What she was more thinking is that they could take her sn, and through some tool extract her address or information from yahoo through her sn. I told her since she didn't even bother to fill out her yahoo account profile, there's not much chance of that :P.

ALso one thing she was worried about a person being able to find where she is by hacking her mobile (pager with Yahoo! messenger). I told ehr that wouldn't really be possible unless the pager already had some sort of GPS system in it to be hacked into...which her's doesn't. I mean i guess a rouge from the cell company could abuse his powers and do some triangulation...but thats the only way I could see it.

[glc]

Set the IM security to block all IM's except for people on her buddy list and do not allow it to accept any files without approval.

[heymrdj]

Done :). Thx for the tips :).

[TechMan2006]

yes there are ways for hackers to get other peoples information threw the use of "tricking" the yahoo servers... they will send a message like forgotpassword@yahoo.com and ask for passwords, and SN's. Then yahoo would send the client info. As far as i know, This can no longer work, this was a exploit yahoo came across many times, and I beleive they have fixed that. The only other software would be screename gnerators and password crackers... but that would taek forever. Your friend has no real worries, just keep the firmware on the router updated, as well as windows updats/firewalls and antivirus, and u should be good to go.