Was I really hacked? Am I being watched?
I would never do this under normal circumstances, but over the Thanksgiving weekend I signed a contract with an online tech support service because my mom managed to do something crazy to one of my two Macs. This company did a lot of work on both of my Macs and I think they're legit, but there are several things I find a bit fishy and I'm working on terminating that contract. The only relevant fact about this company is that everybody speaks with such a heavy Indian accent that communication is difficult. As I try to sort all of this out, I have a hard time understanding them and vice versa, thus I hope to get some straight answers here.
1) Was I really hacked? As the tech guy was working remotely on my "Mac B" he used Terminal to show me that this computer had been hacked, and then googled to show me something about a Facebook hack. Since it was my mom at the computer when things went crazy, and I know she uses Facebook to some extent (I rarely do),, I just took him at his word and let him proceed trying to fix her gmail problem. At some point I said, "Mac B is on the same network as Mac A. Is it possible that Mac A was hacked also?" He said yes, and we went through the same routine on Mac A (the IMPORTANT one with all my stuff). He used Terminal to show me that Mac A had also been hacked, so I let him work on that one too. In 20+ years on Macs, I've never encountered this issue before, so I'm have trouble discerning fact from fiction. As I'm searching the Apple Discussions and googling, I'm not so sure I really was hacked. I did NOT have firewall turned on. (I've just now turned it on.) Since the Mac asks for my master password each time new software is installed, I've assumed this meant that I was (relatively) safe. How can I know for sure whether or not I was hacked? I would guess that the hacking history he showed me has been cleared, but how can I look for this now and in the future? When I asked the tech guy WHEN the computers had been hacked, he said there was no way of telling? Is this true? I haven't ever seen any suspicious activity on either computer....the only issue I had was that I couldn't get my mom's gmail to display correctly.
2) Is their server slowing down my browser? Part of the contract I signed included protection from hacking in the future by going through their remote servers. It seems to me that, during these past couple of weeks since I signed up for that, my browser is noticably slower. Is that a likely result of everything running through their severs?
3) Do they have access to all my info? I know nothing is private anymore, but is it possible that they have direct access to all my info? As I was talking with a representative today about terminating my contract, he was mentioning a software license as if they had an actual program on my computers or software on their end specific to my computer. Does this mean they have direct access to all my information? How can I know if theyve installed something on my computer or if they have something watching me? I've tried looking through logs, etc., but I really don't know what i'm looking for.
I'm not bashing this company, I just want to discern what's really going on. There's too much I don't know, and I'm not comfortable with this.