Stolen bandwidth

[sommai]

Sorry if this is obvious to the net experts but I am at a loss.

My internet connection has suddenly dropped from around 5mb to around .8mb download. I have noticed that there is constant activity on the modem (broadband) which there was not before. I have replaced the modem but nothing changes. I have tried to see what is linking to me and the main links are the following.
memtest, akamai, google. with google being the main one though I have no tools to determine how much each isp is taking in band width.
I wonder if someone is using my computer as the main flow is in, and not out.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

 

[SirGCal]

If you have a wireless router that is unsecured then it is entirely possible someone is leaching off your internet. Lock it down.

 

[spidey07]

Or virus/worm. Also call the provider and they can check things out.

 

[sommai]

I have wi-fi and seperate modem, I have disconnected the wifi physically but still have the same issue.

 

[ViviTheMage]

I think you're confused, can you explain your set up a bit more granularity? Do you have a router, where is it in your setup, where are your pc(s), how many?

Is your wifi secure?

 

[sommai]

I have a wireless router which recieves data from my isp modem via cat 6 cable. The router is hard wired via cat 6 cable to my computer but of course is accessable from my wireless devices in the home. Hope this is clear. I use the computer as a server for watching and listening via wireless.

As far as I can tell the wi-fi is secure, it is 64 bit encrypted and has a password.

 

[Crusty]

I'm assuming you mean you're using plain old WEP encryption. If so, you really should change that to WPA-PSK. WEP encryption is outdated and quite flawed. Someone with a little bit of knowledge can crack that in just a few minutes.

Otherwise it's possible you've got a virus on one of your machines that's turned it into a bot for someone else. Have you scanned your PC's lately?

 

[sommai]

Thanks for all the advice.

I have scanned the computer to no avail several times.

I have now reformatted system drive and re-installed windows, all seems ok now.

I am pretty sure that a virus or worm had got on the system.

Once again thanks for help.

 

[VirtualLarry]

64-bit (WEP) encpyption is no good for security. WPA-PSK (with AES encryption) is the minimum that you should use, and you should use a long password.