Hacker controlling mouse?

[Maria DeStefano]

Can anybody help me with this problem?-
It appears as if my mouse is being controlled by an external source. I know this can be done because the computer guy where I used to work used go into my computer from another. He could view my screen and control my mouse on
another computer.
Sometimes when I'm tryin to use my mouse, it is steering AWAY from buttons, for example, when I try to click on them.

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

If its a Windows PC perhaps you are running pcanywhere or netmeeting.

Sometimes network administration uses this to grab admin control of your computer to make changes or correct things.

Or it could be nefarious. A joke program could have been loaded. If you have control of course, because YOU are at the power switch.

SEP

[Brian Crabtree]

If you are really worried, I would recommend either disconnecting your computer from the network and seeing if the problem occurs, or setting up a cronjob to run a "netstat -a" into a dynamic file every 5 minutes or so, and see if there are any IP addresses that come up.

On the more simple side, flip over the mouse, remove the ball cover and ball, and look for a hair/dust/crud build up on the roller bars. This can cause the mouse ball to slip or stop moving when using it sometimes. Rubbing alcohol and a q-tip works well for removing this, although scraping it off with a fingernail or pen will work just as well.

Thanks,

Brian

[Keith Bevan_1]

I agree with the suggestions previous.

1) Most likely cause is a buildup of foreign matter inside the mouse ball chamber, dust, full etc etc. Give the ball and internal rollers a clean by removing the ball from the chamber.

2) Seconday cause is likely to be Netmeeting or PCanywhere sitting in host mode. You can determine if these are being used as there is probably an icon in you icon tray (bottom right hand corener of your windows environment)
If its PCAW then you are likely to have a chat option when you right click on the PCAW icon.
If its in chatmode then someone is already connected to your host and console via dialup or TCP/ip depending how youve got it configured. providing you can get yoru mouse on the icon then you can end the remote session.

3) Thirdly it could be an incorrect mouse driver or even the drag rate when you move the mouse. Check in the contol panel under mouse settings.

Keith

[Ron Kinner]

There is at least one virus which causes this. As has been previously mentioned there are several joke programs which do it too. A trojan could also do this. A bad mouse is another possibility. They are super cheap these days (~$5 often with $5 rebates if you watch the Sunday ads or spring for a new optical mouse for $10-20. They are so much nicer than the old mice.) so I would just change it out (Shut down the computer when you change the mouse.)

Do a good virus scan. housecall.antivirus.com will scan your system for free.

Run msconfig and see if there are any strange programs running. http://netsquirrel.com/msconfig/ tells how and has links to sites which explain what each program does.

Get the free version of zone alarm from www.zonelabs.com. It will block any remote control trojan.

Finally get the free version of ad aware and run it. Delete anything it finds. (This last won't solve your problem but is part of a good system cleanup.)

If all else fails, go into Start/Settings/Control Panel/System/Device Manager, find the mouse and delete it then reboot. Windows should rediscover it and install the correct driver.

Ron

[generic_1]

I am not sure what kind of hardware you are running on, IE laptop. Some Laptop mice will try to recalibrate themselves. Usually if you let off the curser, after a few seconds the mouse will stop moving. Do a full virusscan to be safe. Replace the mouse, and see if that makes a difference. Good Luck.