dadiOH has written on 8/1/2013 5:12 AM:
"Juan Wei" wrote in message

I just saw this on a Windows mailing list:

A neighbor had a serious senior moment yesterday and let
Global Techs PC Support have remote access to her Win 8
HP laptop for a couple of hours.

She realized the error of her ways, contacted her credit
card companies, banks, etc.; changed all her passwords;
called one of the major credit reporting agencies; and so
on.

Her son, who is a rocket scientist, told her that they
could have planted any number of undetectable "devices"
on her machine and that, even if she does a Win 8 factory
reset, there's no guarantee that doing that would remove
all of the devices. I assume he's talking about
"ordinary" malware so she's going to have him call me so
I can get a better idea of what he's concerned about.

At this point, she's frightened of even turning it on.

What would you do if you were faced with this computer?
Win 8 reset? Nuke and pave? Something else?

I don't know what anti-malware she has on the machine --
whatever comes with a new HP laptop, I presume, plus
perhaps "Norton Security Suite" as provided by her ISP.

Thanks.

Why does she think that employees of what appears to be a legitimate company
which she hired did anything to compromise her computer or the data on it?

I think they are a well-known scam outfit. I mean, who calls you and
offers to fix your computer because they've seen so many error messages?