eli5: if my friend got hacked, and i am borrowing their computer for work, but they have all their logins and stuff on there still, am i susceptible to the hack too?

Question

my friend got hacked, and they are saying they have all of their info and attached viruses to all their devices that they own. i currently am in possession of their laptop and they obviously didn’t log out of anything on said laptop. I’ve been using their laptop for a few months now, for work and personal stuff, does this mean they have my information too? or how does all this hacking stuff work?

In: Technology

Answer 1

> I’ve been using their laptop for a few months now, for work and personal stuff, does this mean they have my information too?

If your friend’s device was legitimately compromised, then you entered credentials on it, then yes, you should consider your accounts compromised as well.

Until your friend is able to fix the security issues with their laptop, immediately stop using it, and change all of your password for all of your accounts. Using a password-manager like Bitwarden to generate secure passwords will help with this. Never reuse passwords, and always make sure your passwords are as complex as possible.

You should also enable 2FA on any account you have that allows it.

That said, if your friend just got an email that said “We hacked your device” that doesn’t mean the device was compromised. It’s a pretty common scam tactic to just send out mass emails like that.