Friend's ex-husband placed spy programs on computer to monitor what she does. What can she do to remove?

She needs to keep that computer off the Internet, for if it is not connected, it cannot report.

She should make copies of all data files that are important, like documents, videos, music, etc., burning them to CDs or DVDs or copying to an external hard drive.

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If her ex-husband has placed a spy program on her computer, that's illegal - criminally illegal - in many states.

The problem here is establishing that a keylogger has indeed been placed on the computer by her ex-husband and that it is not one of the malware-keyloggers that the criminals elsewhere on the Internet keep trying, and sometimes succeeding, in installing on peoples' computers. An investigation can find out what website or email address the program is reporting its data to.

Once the location of the reports is known the reporting can be blocked, often by the firewall.

What can be done? Six possibilities:

1.

Talk to a detective from the police department about this, as if the ex-husband has indeed placed a keylogger on the computer, evidence must be preserved and there are specific procedures the police must follow.

2.

File a civil lawsuit against the guy, but that takes a lawyer, if you can find one that will take it pro bono. I don't know if Judge Judy would accept this.

3.

Say to hell with it and reinstall the factory software. Since you made copies of all your data earlier, this will get rid of the keylogger as well as any malware that has sneaked onto the computer.

4.

Get another computer and use it for important stuff.

5.

Install anti-malware software that can scan for a keylogger or take the computer to the Best Buy people and have them scan.

6.

There are forums on the Internet where volunteers help people who have problems, but this requires a lot of work, running special software and uploading the lists the software creates to the forum and then waiting for a reply.

Here are two:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/

You can enter a question on the right side of the screen

http://forums.spybot.info/

You have to register before you can post a question.

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speaking as a working laptop or computing device help table tech, and a controlling male... basically reformat the device, and reimage it... in case you have a restoration disk then run that... and which will return the device to the form it became into in from the manufacturing unit... email me in case you neeed extra help no longer all men are pigs, ( don't be fooled by my curly tail)