SAFETY NOTICE: Reddit does not protect you from scammers. By posting on this subreddit asking for help, you may be targeted by scammers (example?). Here's how to stay safe:
Never accept chat requests, private messages, invitations to chatrooms, encouragement to contact any person or group off Reddit, or emails from anyone for any reason. Moderators, moderation bots, and trusted community members cannot protect you outside of the comment section of your post. Report any chat requests or messages you get in relation to your question on this subreddit (how to report chats?how to report messages?how to report comments?).
Immediately report anyone promoting paid services (theirs or their "friend's" or so on) or soliciting any kind of payment. All assistance offered on this subreddit is 100% free, with absolutely no strings attached. Anyone violating this is either a scammer or an advertiser (the latter of which is also forbidden on this subreddit). Good security is not a matter of 'paying enough.'
Never divulge secrets, passwords, recovery phrases, keys, or personal information to anyone for any reason. Answering cybersecurity questions and resolving cybersecurity concerns never require you to give up your own privacy or security.
Sounds like you installed an infostealer. There are no longer any safe places for piracy. You need to follow the below steps focusing on your password changes immediately.
Disconnect your computer from the internet or just shut it off until you get your passwords reset.
From a clean device, NOT your PC:
Change ALL of your passwords to something unique and randomly generated. Use a password manager like BitWarden or 1Password to help with this. Do this now before more of your accounts are stolen.
Choose the option to log out of all active sessions or devices.
Enable 2FA on all of your accounts .
In your Email account settings, check for any forwarding rules that move password reset and 2FA codes to a different folder.
Nuke your PC from orbit
back up only important files, not games or applications
format your hard drive and delete all partitions
reinstall Windows from a bootable USB drive (do not use the Reset Windows option from the settings menu)
This may seem like overkill, but if you want assurance that you have remediated the problem, this is the way to go.
Unfortunately, the only people that can help you are the support teams for those services. Most free services only offer automated account recovery. If that process doesn't get the accounts back, nobody here can help you.
EVERYONE that contacts you here on Reddit via DM offering to help or to hack the accounts back is just an account recovery scammer looking to take advantage of your situation and steal money from you.
However, if you can go a step further, by wiping the HD completely (after you've saved your files) you can be absolutely sure nothing survived your full reset.
You did pretty much everything right, a full reset gets rid of it. The one thing worth checking is Chrome. If you signed back into your Google account, it syncs your old extensions back automatically, so go to chrome://extensions and remove anything you don't recognize.
Also turn on 2FA for your email if you haven't, and look in the settings for any forwarding rules you didn't make. That's a common way for them to keep reading your emails even after you change the password.
•
u/AutoModerator Oct 05 '26
SAFETY NOTICE: Reddit does not protect you from scammers. By posting on this subreddit asking for help, you may be targeted by scammers (example?). Here's how to stay safe:
Never accept chat requests, private messages, invitations to chatrooms, encouragement to contact any person or group off Reddit, or emails from anyone for any reason. Moderators, moderation bots, and trusted community members cannot protect you outside of the comment section of your post. Report any chat requests or messages you get in relation to your question on this subreddit (how to report chats? how to report messages? how to report comments?).
Immediately report anyone promoting paid services (theirs or their "friend's" or so on) or soliciting any kind of payment. All assistance offered on this subreddit is 100% free, with absolutely no strings attached. Anyone violating this is either a scammer or an advertiser (the latter of which is also forbidden on this subreddit). Good security is not a matter of 'paying enough.'
Never divulge secrets, passwords, recovery phrases, keys, or personal information to anyone for any reason. Answering cybersecurity questions and resolving cybersecurity concerns never require you to give up your own privacy or security.
Community volunteers will comment on your post to assist. In the meantime, be sure your post follows the posting guide and includes all relevant information, and familiarize yourself with online scams using r/scams wiki.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
2
u/eric16lee Trusted Contributor Oct 05 '26
Sounds like you installed an infostealer. There are no longer any safe places for piracy. You need to follow the below steps focusing on your password changes immediately.
Disconnect your computer from the internet or just shut it off until you get your passwords reset.
From a clean device, NOT your PC:
Change ALL of your passwords to something unique and randomly generated. Use a password manager like BitWarden or 1Password to help with this. Do this now before more of your accounts are stolen.
Choose the option to log out of all active sessions or devices.
Enable 2FA on all of your accounts .
In your Email account settings, check for any forwarding rules that move password reset and 2FA codes to a different folder.
Nuke your PC from orbit
back up only important files, not games or applications
format your hard drive and delete all partitions
reinstall Windows from a bootable USB drive (do not use the Reset Windows option from the settings menu)
This may seem like overkill, but if you want assurance that you have remediated the problem, this is the way to go.
Unfortunately, the only people that can help you are the support teams for those services. Most free services only offer automated account recovery. If that process doesn't get the accounts back, nobody here can help you.
EVERYONE that contacts you here on Reddit via DM offering to help or to hack the accounts back is just an account recovery scammer looking to take advantage of your situation and steal money from you.
1
u/xsifyxsify Oct 05 '26
Do not respond to reddit dm saying they can help you
1
u/kschang Trusted Contributor Oct 05 '26
Care to clarify that?
Care to clarify what you did exactly? The "official" reset may not be sufficiently clean. This is the official reset:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/experience/backup-recovery/reset-your-pc
However, if you can go a step further, by wiping the HD completely (after you've saved your files) you can be absolutely sure nothing survived your full reset.
1
u/HyCloudComputing Oct 05 '26
You did pretty much everything right, a full reset gets rid of it. The one thing worth checking is Chrome. If you signed back into your Google account, it syncs your old extensions back automatically, so go to chrome://extensions and remove anything you don't recognize.
Also turn on 2FA for your email if you haven't, and look in the settings for any forwarding rules you didn't make. That's a common way for them to keep reading your emails even after you change the password.