Hi all,

While I was online today a few of my applications/programs began to run without any action on my part. These were not normal startup applications but things like my AIM (which is disabled for startup) and Media Players. I ran a TrojanHunter quick scan which revealed suspicious activity in port 420 (peeper.120). I then disconnected from the internet and ran a full TrojanGuard and anti-virus scan which revealed nothing. The odd thing was that when I checked my network connections, on the screen under internet was an FTP connection that neither of us activated. Its listing was as follows : ftp.csie.chu.edu.tw. When I checked into this I realized that this is the address of a local computer college in my area. Under properties it says this connection was established last Wednesday (8 days ago) at 10am when neither I or my girlfriend was home.
Here are some details about my setup. Both my and my girlfriends are running XP and our computers are networked together with my computer acting as the gateway. I have Zone Alarm (free) and TroganHunter Guard activated and constantly running. I have a cable connection to the Internet that is usually active 24 hrs a day.
My questions are as follows a.) Is it possible to trace this activity and report it back to the colleges system administrator? b.) What software/hardware can I add to make my system more secure? How were they able to get into my system? Please ignore part C if you feel it is in contrast to the aims of this site. I am just starting to study security so this would be of interest to me so that I can understand it and prevent it form happening to me again.

Thanks in advance for your help!