Film and Communications industries competitor hackers

I am a director and screenwriter. Where I am has massive security and if I use my laptop at any point to login to check my email, my password is known. i think that they erase emails from my account so that the only ones that contact me are not a competitive threat to them. I do not even have any security on my laptop. It feels like they have so much money and development is my little computer really going to have a chance with some lame software when they have offices of people.
There is one production company site where they rummage through my computer when I visit and the few times I have gone there my computer suddenly crashes. I have even had them in my PDA.
Is there anybody here that is fascinated by film production that may be interested in lending suggestions to me.

Right now my main concern is that emails are received properly, my site viewed properly (I saw it not accessible on the set of a production) and that I receive incoming emails properly even if competitors login and erase them. Thanks!!!

Hey, Welcome to AO.

Just a couple of questions:

Is this your personal laptop, or owned by the company? Same question for the PDA.

Also, is your email a personal account, or is it provided by your company?

Cheers! :drink:

Who/where is the host mail server and how do you connect to the server to access your emails?

I heard whispers that emailing important items to a personal email account (such as the one you will create when visiting the gmail site next) so that this is not a problem for you in the future..... But you didn't hear it from me =)

CTO

Hmmm,

Quote:

---

if I use my laptop at any point to login to check my email, my password is known.

---

How do you know that for certain? If it is correct then it would suggest that you have some sort of spyware such as a keylogger on your machine.

Quote:

---

I do not even have any security on my laptop.

---

And just who is responsible for that?......................

I see from your IP address that you appear to be in Canada, so I will assume that is the country where this is all happening?

Quote:

---

i think that they erase emails from my account so that the only ones that contact me are not a competitive threat to them.

---

"Mischief to Data" is a federal offence under Canadian law.........err........ so is Fraud ;)

Quote:

---

There is one production company site where they rummage through my computer when I visit and the few times I have gone there my computer suddenly crashes. I have even had them in my PDA.

---

"Illegal Access" is another federal offence, as is crashing your machine. But once again I ask "how do you know for certain?"

westin is spot on with his question as to whether we are talking about private equipment and accounts as this might affect suggested solutions. Basically I usually recommend stuff that is free for private use but if it is business kit you will have to pay for it.

CTO is also on the ball with:

Quote:

---

Who/where is the host mail server and how do you connect to the server to access your emails?

---

My initial suspicion is that you have some sort of spyware on your laptop but it is possible that your wireless traffic is being intercepted or you are a victim of session hijacking (if you don't close your e-mail account properly when you have finished).

I would suggest you get a local PC security expert to set your system up for you, as they will also be able to teach you how to use it securely. At this stage I would strongly recommend saving your personal data and reinstalling your operating system.

Don't forget that you need to scan the personal data for malware and then change all your passwords.

Or download a linux live DVD and boot up from the disc when you need to access secure e-mails etc while in the building.

you don't even need to have the hard drive connected to the laptop, so when the security people inspect it they will not be able to tamper, monitor the drive :)

also setup a gmail e-mail account and use that for your e-mails if needed.

have your work related e-mail account automatically forward all recieved e-mail to the g-mail account that way you can be sure that nothing is being deleted stolen etc.

Also change your passwords regulary and always make the password have higher and lower case letters, numbers and symbols. :)

Quote:

---

i think that they erase emails from my account

---

Lets think about this for a moment, and consider the following.

1) Using a POP server. The 'conspirators' would either require access to the mail server account, or the workstation that downloads and stores the emails. If they have access to the mail server, and they are deleting emails - you would never know this if you simply download the emails with a POP client.

2) If using webmail host then the conspirators would know the password of the account and login to delete emails that have already been read. Chaning the password is the obvious option, but if this does not seem to help then your 'new password' is being leaked back to them. Alternatively, webmail hosts typically have 'forgot my password' facilities which asks some questions or emails the password to a 'secondary email account'. Perhaps the conspirators had access to your email account once and added in this secondary account which enables them to get your password on demand. Maybe the answers to your security questions are known / too obvious.

3) Central hosted mail store (MS Exchange for example). The emails are being deleted from the mail store after being read. This could be either normal behaviour or a serious issue bordering on BFP (Big effing problem); perhaps certain emails are being 'cleaned' out of the mail store during a regular maintenance process.

Food for thought anyways.... :)

CTO

dont forget to check the downloads area of this site ive found quite a few useful tools that i now use on my machine ,ie password generators, intrusion detects , ect but your best bet is to find a local security expert to securely erase your hard drive, reinstall the operating system and lock your system down ,ie turning off unneeded services, using the group policy editor to put into place security protocol and setting up any needed software good luck i hope this helps