i recently received a pop-up message which apparently came through my browser, it just said messenger service in the upper left corner of the box. the message was sent to my IP address and stated " your computer has just been hacked baby" i have norton system works 2002 which was enabled at the time. is there any way for me to know for sure whether or not i was hacked? if my computer was hacked, does that mean someone can see everytime i log on to a certain site and knows all my usernames , passwords etc. any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you. gg

It could be a neat HTML trick by the website you were on, like the one which purports to be reading your C: drive when it actually doesn't. Or someone just playing silly buggers. Most serious hackers wouldn't tell you about it and blow their chances of getting anything useful out of you.

You can check for unusual activity using your Event Viewer. Through this you can access your logs. There are Application, Security, and System logs.
The Application logs will register access to applications, the security log tracks system access, illegal file access, invalid passwords etc. The system log is the default file and registers all the system related events.
Most of the logs are only available if you have already enable auditing on your system but there will be some in there that should give you some clues...
Also check your system with Adaware and Spybot to see if anybody left anything behind...

thanks for the advice, where do i access the event viewer?

http://www.geeknewz.com/comments.php?catid=1&id=3403

You haven't been hacked, read the above article.

thanks memphis, that article really put my mind at ease. have a nice day.

No worries m8, I can see why you were worried.

the above does not work for me. it has been enabled in the bios and i followed the above set by ElaineM but it does not work. it just restarts the computer but does not shut it down.

any other suggestions?