Keystroke Hacking...

Kiki

You can try MacScan. It is commercial software, 29.99 but I think it is worth the investemnt. It will scan for spyware, including keystroke hacks.Hope this helps.

Joseph

Download Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac (free) http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-ed ition.aspx. Update to the latest version. Perform an anti-virus run, and fix the errors.

Keystroke hacking is extremely rare on the Mac. However, since you're convinced that your identity has been compromised, you might want to change your passwords to make sure the problem won't happen again. I'm not sure how you got hacked, if indeed you did, but Sophos is a good first step.

Anywho, my identity was "stolen" and the bank told me it was because i have a "keystroke hack" on my computer... and that i need to run anti-virus to fix it.... um, i am not all that computer savvy, but is a hack not a virus?

Did your bank send an IT security expert to examine your computer? If not, then it can't possibly know whether you've been hacked, and whoever you spoke to is just making up nonsense. I can make up several much more plausible stories. Someone with access to your computer stole the password when you weren't looking. Or you chose a weak password, and someone guessed it. Or there was a breach of security at the bank itself (maybe the most likely scenario.)

Besides all that, if you have been hacked, there is no way to detect it short of a bytewise inspection of all your files. Anti-virus software would be of no help whatsoever. To eliminate the possibility, you would have to completely erase your hard drive, reinstall the OS from original media, reinstall your software from known-good copies, and then restore your documents.

KiKi

I believe you can download the trial version on MacScan, that will check for the keystroke hack. ClamXav is free but to my knowledge is it stricly AV and malware, it is free to use.Little Snitch is commercial software as well. It is a good prgram IMO as it will detect any connection to your Mac and allow you to block it if it looks suspicious.

I don't really know how susceptable Macs are to keystroke loggers. Perhaps someone with more knowledge will pick up on this thread, and be able to tell you. I apologise I am not able to say for sure. Like I said try the trial version of MacScan to see if the keystroke logger is on your Mac. You can set your firewall to block all incoming connections which will allow your basic Internet needs, just go to sys prefs, security, and the advanced settings of firewall to set that mode. Hope this helps.

Joseph

Sophos won't protect you from anything. It's worthless. All it will do, if it does anything at all, is slow down and destabilize your computer.

Kiki

Please, please always run your firewall. Run it in stealth mode, and or block all connections. You can check stealth mode before activating block all connections I do believe. And always set a login password for your Mac.

Joseph

Let me clarify something. Anti-virus software works by scanning for files that contain a pattern that matches one found in known malware distributed on the Internet. A hacker who had physical possession of your computer, or who somehow managed to gain control of it remotely, would not install one of those known malware programs. That would be pointless. He'd install something that didn't match any known pattern. I'm by no means a career IT criminal, but if I had your computer I could install a keylogger that no anti-virus software would detect, not now and not ever.

I doubt very much that you've been hacked in any real sense, but if you have, you'll be wasting your time installing any kind of software to counteract the hack.

Please, please always run your firewall.

What on earth do you think the point of that would be? The misinformation in this thread is out of control.

Linc,

I don't know. Maybe you can enlighten us why we should, or should not turn on the firewall.

Joseph