What do I do if someone has hacked their way into my laptop and set up a network and made themselves the administrator of it?

Question

I was staying at a place that had wifi. I set my firewall to domain. Someone on the wifi there set up a local network and wiped everything out of my laptop. That was about a year ago. I moved out of that place and just started from scratch. I recently visited that place and went on the wifi with my phone. When I left there and got back to my laptop, I began to have issues with my laptop again. How would I be able to be absolutely sure that no one has access to my laptop other than I? Is it possible to figure out who has done this? Who do I report this to? I've been dealing with this type of issue for the better part of the last two years and am so sick of feeling like my laptop and my phone are potentially compromised. Thanks for any help!!!

Answer 1

Hello

Thank you for your question and reaching out.

It is difficult to tell who has hacked your Laptop.

I would suggest you to backup your Data\Documents to External drive or into Cloud.

Then Format and do Fresh install of Windows.

--If the reply is helpful, please Upvote and Accept as answer--

Answer 2

Hard to tell from what side started your issues, if from WiFi network, your phone or even your own notebook.
Windows Firewall has rules for 3 distinct profiles (Domain, Private, Public), these profiles are tied to your network card (wifi or ethernet), but there is a semantic in those words, you can read them as "the place you are", so if you are in place like that, set to "Public" so your notebook will be hidden from other devices.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/make-a-wi-fi-network-public-or-private-in-windows-0460117d-8d3e-a7ac-f003-7a0da607448d

But have in mind, this gone help, if you do not change Default Firewall Rules.
You can also start using your computer as "User" with lower permissions and leave "Administrator" for administration purposes. I know sometimes is difficult...
Reconsider complexity of your passwords.

Even with above in place, most of actions are not started from outside (like someone enter your house), they are started from inside. Firewall rules usually block Inbound not Outbound traffic.

There is no 100% secure, but with these 3 basic rules you can raise your wall
a) Use Public, and always check you are in Public profile
b) Login a "User" not as Administrator
c) Review complexity of passwords