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Have My Laptop Been Hacked?

How can I see if my MacBook Pro has been hacked?

My partner has had his accounts hacked. I would like to make a reasonable attempt at seeing if mine has been hacked as well. I use 2-factor authentication, 1Password, and have just changed most of my passwords.
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Mike

Comments: 2 Responses to “Have My Laptop Been Hacked?”

    1 year ago

    It is very rare that a computer is "hacked." And usually that would be if someone was on the board of a big company, worked high up in government, or in espionage and such. There has to be something to gain for the hacker to dedicate time to personally going after you.

    What is much more common is that you simply have some malware installed. Some people may refer to this as "being hacked" but it is a very different thing. With malware, no one is actively involved. You just installed something that is showing ads, redirecting you to a different search engine, or causing some other trouble.

    Sounds like your partner had their online accounts compromised. There's be no reason to suspect because that happened that to them, that you would also have malware on your computer. And if you did, you'd see something, like tons of ads appearing, or going to one search engine only to find yourself at an other, etc.

    But if you want to check for malware, I guess the least worst way would be to install the free version of Malwarebytes, run a scan, then uninstall it. Don't buy anything as the free version of these anti-malware apps exist to try to scare you into buying something. It may even come up with "privacy warnings" and other things that are really fine.

    I'm only suggesting this because you seem to want to do something to confirm that you don't have malware. Your Mac already has anti-malware software that is built into macOS and is always running. But if using a third-party app will give you some piece of mind, then it may be worth it.

    As for your online accounts, that's what you should really be concerned about. But using two-factor is great and makes you almost impervious to having your accounts broken into. Changing your passwords is good too, as long as you are now using truly random passwords and a unique one for each and every site.

    Pay special attention to your email accounts. Make sure those are tight: two-factor, long random unique passwords. Other accounts can be broken into simply by asking for a reset link send to email, so your email accounts are very important.

    Mike
    1 year ago

    I haven't noticed any problems with any of my online accounts, so I'm not going to worry about checking it for malware. Good to know that Apple already is doing something about that. Thanks for the explanation and support.

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