My mom has Windows XP on her computer, uses microsoft outlook and has a continous internet connection with no firewall. Friday, she turned on her computer and instead of booting up, it said "Norton Sucks, McAfee's Dead" and there was nothing on her C drive. How do we know if that was a hacker or a virus or a different problem? She has reinstalled Norton, but I don't think it is picking up anything. If this is a hacker, then what can we do about it? Dows windows XP come with its one Firewall protection or should she buy something?

Have her contact her ISP and explain the situation. They may be able to check logs of the activity on her account. If she stays connected all the time, she should definitely use a firewall. XP has a firewall, but there are a few shareware and freeware programs out there that do a better job. Antivirus programs only do an adequate job when they are kept up to date. It will be difficult to determine if someone hacked her computer, or she downloaded a virus since her HD was erased. It couldve been both! Thats where the ISP may or may not be able to help. To prevent future problems, install a firewall and keep up to date virus protection. It isnt 100% protection, since hackers and virus writers are continually trying new things, but it is the best protection you can provide at this time.Good Luck.

windows xp has a backdoor built into it by default. I had antivirus and firewall programs finely tuned...yet they used the windows XP backdoor to hack into my computer. It's most likely someone from your mom's isp, so have her contact the isp to check their logs. Several users from my isp scan me every few hours. don't use windows xp's built-in firewall. it sucks. Use sygate, kerio, or outpost firewalls. their free versions are really good. Zonealarm is for newbies, which might be something that your mom can handle...but it has a reputation of not working well with windows xp.

Shadow, port 5000 is I believe the "backdoor" you referred to. There are patches to fix this problem.

Thank you for the suggestions and the help. I will pass the info along.