macbook possibly hacked

[lunarc]

Hi guys,

Firstly thanks for your great service to the apple community. I often check for advice on your site and it really helps me out!

It seems that my friend's macbook has been hacked. A few minutes ago while we were face timing his machine froze except for FaceTime. He then received a message that his computer has been hacked. Next I received a spam mail "HI, my car broke down, need money etc." through his yahoo account. He logged into yahoo, changed password. Minutes later I received the same spam mail from one of his work accounts. So it can't be that yahoo was hacked, it must've been from some source that has all his inboxes synced (hence me thinking his macbook).

He has a mac, an iPhone, and an iPad he rarely uses. Can you guys please give me advice what he can do now? Where to look for the problem? I told him to get off the internet with his mac immediately.

Thanks so much

lunarc

 

[Consultant]

Got an images?

He's probably using the same password everywhere. Email can be easily compromised on PC or any other computer if you got a weak password.

 

[lunarc]

No image unfortunately. But it seems the macbook has indeed been hacked. Called Apple, they confirmed (?) and advised to go offline to break the connection, then change passwords, block cc's, etc.

So what can he do to prevent this from happening in the future? I'm still not quite understanding how it could've happened in the first place o.o

Cheers
lunarc

 

[NT1440]

No image unfortunately. But it seems the macbook has indeed been hacked. Called Apple, they confirmed (?) and advised to go offline to break the connection, then change passwords, block cc's, etc.

So what can he do to prevent this from happening in the future? I'm still not quite understanding how it could've happened in the first place o.o

Cheers
lunarc

There is nothing Apple can do to confirm that without physical access to the machine.

 

[lunarc]

Thanks NT1440, I was already kinda wondering how they'd be able to tell. So do you know how he can check if there had indeed been a hack? Or what he can do to protect himself against it?

Cheers
lunarc

 

[old-wiz]

Hi guys,
He then received a message that his computer has been hacked.

lunarc

what kind of message? Mail? iMessage? what was the exact text?

what proof is there that the computer itself was hacked and not simply the e-mail?

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But it seems the macbook has indeed been hacked. Called Apple, they confirmed (?)
lunarc

How could apple possibly confirm it's been hacked? And what is the definition of "hacked"? Apple does not have any connection to the computer and cannot check for "hacking" without physical access to the machine.

 

[lunarc]

It was a message on the computer screen, not iMessage or mail, probably through Safari. We were thinking that it was through the macbook because spam mails through two of his accounts were sent that are in no relation to one another and had different passwords, but both are synched to and accessed through the iOS mail program. The spams were sent right after the "Your computer has been hacked" msg appeared on the screen and just minutes apart.