Hey folks, I have a question. My computer just started doing something a little strange. I'll shut it down normally, and go off to do something else. Occasionally, when I come back to it, it will have restarted all by itself. I've even seen it do it. The computer is in my bedroom, and I've seen it do a regular startup without me even toucching it.
Are there any trojans or viruses that will allow a hacker to do a remote start through a dial up connection? I did a little experiment today by shutting down the computer, then unplugging the phone line. It didn't restart. This isn't conclusive, because the restarts appear to happen randomly, but it does bother me.
Has anyone heard of anything like this? Is it a malfunction of my computer, or something more nefarious?
Posted by Rich at October 24, 2002 11:41 PMHey, Rich:
You mentioned this while I was on the road and I forgot to get back to you.
There is something called "wake on lan" that allows a remote administrator to boot up your PC. But this would only happen over your Ethernet connection if you have one.
Some PCs have a BIOS feature that will power up on an incoming call. You might check your BIOS settings (you usually hold down the F2 or "del" key or something while it is powering up to get there)to see if you have a setting for either Ethernet or serial port activity waking your PC. If you have an internal modem, check the specs and see if it has some type of feature like that.
Other than that, I might consider consulting an exorcist.
Cheers!
SKB
Yup. There's a setting in the BIOS for waking up. Just do what Bubba said.
'course, it's easy enough to see if this is the problem. Just dial your modem number from another phone, and see if your computer boots up.
You may want to purchase/dload a firewall in case someone does try to sneak a trojan in your pc. Check out Cnet.com...downloads section. They have quite a few that you can try out for free...try blackice or zonealarm.
Posted by: Justin on October 26, 2002 5:50 PMThanks for the comments gyts. I checked my BIOS, and sure enough, wake on ring was enabled. I disabled it, and haven't had any problems since. I do have personal firewall installed and it has stopped a lot of trojan attacks (I was amazed at how many.)
Posted by: rich on October 27, 2002 8:30 AM