Hacked Laptop/BIOS Hack on NW21EF

Hi all,

I've been using my laptop for quite sometime now and lately I've been experiencing a very weird behaviour.

Windows popping up here and there, files transferred, admin rights changed whilst I was using the laptop (flashing between windows, I could see the changes), extremely high CPU usage and recently an error regarding NTLDR during windows startup.

This happened at a time I was with a friend, who was connected to the same network as me and had experienced a similar problem with his netbook only a couple days earlier.

During the past week I tried to reinstall windows, run windows recovery systems numerous times and ended up using Ubuntu 10.04 for sometime when everything worked perfectly.

Then again, when using Ubuntu, I ended up in the same network as my friend. Suddenly, my laptop went crazy and rebooted. (he was left with my laptop for sometime and although locked in ubuntu, when I came back it was shut down).

I'm wondering whether he did something physically to my laptop or whether my BIOS has been hacked and the intel VT enabled (I think its disabled by default).

Anyway, any suggestions on how to recover from this and start using my laptop normally again. I didn't delete the disk partitions and tried installing Windows in another hard disk, but it seems like it keeps on happening. I also logged into my computer and disabled remote access, but once I open up windows and click on Start, its the second icon appearing from the bottom.

I've tried to lookup any info regarding a BIOS update, but couldn't get anything from Sony's page.

 

I've also forgot to add that the first time this happened, my two blackberries were connected on the same network and both of them formatted themselves, despite one of them not having wireless access.

 

You should run a s.m.a.r.t. test on your laptops hard drive, it sounds like the hard drive is either failing or about to fail.

It could also be a ram problem.

Most of your story sounds a little far fetched unless you have allowed your laptop to have been exploited with some sort of remote access program/trogen. Especially the blackberry story.............But I will not go there.

So s.m.a.r.t. test your hard drive (Visit manufactures website most provide free utilities, Western Digital provides a tool for their hard drives that will test/report issues) and test your ram ( http://hcidesign.com/memtest/).

You could also try opening the bottom of the laptop and reseating the ram it might be slightly loose, and make sure none of the hard drive screws are loose causing random problems with the drive being disconnected.

FYI
Remember to keep your pc updated with patches, have a good antivirus/malware program.

Secure your pc by making sure Windows is set to ask for a password on startup.

Stepping away from your laptop in a public place? Make sure you click Start -> Lock before you go anywhere.

Enable the Bios password so bootup process is somewhat secured.

If you share your pc with your friends make sure you monitor their use of it.
All it takes is for one idiot to download/install the wrong thing, or visit the wrong site and its FORMAT/REINSTALL time.

Always backup important data.

regards
Michael

 

Blackberry's formatting themselves and pc's changing settings on their own??? Sounds like you a prankster living with you or an EMP....lol

 

Lol I know it sounds too paranoid to be true but thats whats happened..

One of the disks I'm using has a problem with SMART, I saw it on linux. I'm gonna run the tests and see where that'll take me..

 

Time to call the ghostbusters: "We came, we saw, we kicked its !"

No, seriously, dont meet your friend anymore. If you do, stay out of his LAN!

 

If you are having smart problems with the hard drive, its time to go out and buy another.
Laptop hard drives are cheap, replace it something faster even.

Remember to get Western Digital.

Then quickly copy over the data you need from the failing drive.
Hopefully you will be able to recover all your data.
Most of these issues you mentioned are from the drive failing.
That and your friends portable EMP

regards
Michael