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dcassFlag for United States of America

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Hacked computer?

My Outlook came up with a bunch of Chinese characters on it.
How do I find out if I've been hacked?
What should I do if so?
Image attached.
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Member_2_6481058
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don't see an image here... can you attach it again?
Have you installed a Language Pack for Windows/Office lately?
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"My Outlook came up with a bunch of Chinese characters on it."

Set outlook to view unicode:
http://www.vnisoft.com/english/UniOutEmail1.html

"How do I find out if I've been hacked?
What should I do if so?"

Run your antivirus scan also scan with Malware Fighting Tools listed here:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/Virus_and_Spyware/Anti-Virus/A_10722-Links-Tool.html
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Here's the image.
I did read about the hackers that were going after anyone with the Chinese language pack installed.  I'm not sure where to look to find out if it was, but I really doubt it.
I've got an older version of Outlook - 2003 and I don't have that READ option in the above post.
OutlookChinese.jpg
That Image does not look great, I think its scraped. Can you redo the screenshot and post it here?
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It's just a print screen - so it will depend on how you view it.
I can't redo it - it doesn't show up now.
Actually if this image really shows what had been on your computer I rather suspect a hardware or driver issue which screwed up your display / windows.
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If I could find someone that could read it, I'd know for sure.
If anyone could translate or forward to a friend, that would help.
dcass

What you have attached looks to me like a corrupt JPG image.  It shows all the typical signs of corruption, such as the pink and blue vertical banding that has affected the section of the image where the menu bar is, and there is a dark grey section at the bottom of the image where the image content is incomplete.

That type of image corruption can occur if you eg. close an image editing application while a file is saving, or if you eject a usb flash drive while it is being written to, but there can be many more causes.

I don't know how you are seeing the screenshot, but here's a small section of how it looks to me, and apparently also to abbright who is worried that your graphics card or monitor are screwed up.
User generated imageI cannot see any Chinese characters in that screenshot image.

Addendum:

The image fails to load in a few image viewing/editing applications on my system, which again signals image corruption.

That said, however, here is how the screenshot image opens in a "Quick View" application I have:
User generated imageThere are fragments all over the place from toolbars, menus, open application windows, and the dotted green area even looks like one of the old Windows 3.1 desktop bitmap textures that persisted through to Windows XP.  I can only assume that you are actually seeing the characters (visible in the image you attached below the menu bar) in the body of the email.

Can you try to capture another screenshot and attach it?
Try uninstalling, rebooting, and re-installing your video driver.  If there is an update for the video driver, that would be great.  

Also, if permitted, switch to a different video card, due to the fact it could be an hardware issue.

Regards,

Elliot
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I'm not concerned if it's a driver - only if I"m hacked.
It only happened once.
Thanks dcass, that's much clearer in the PDF you attached.

From what I can see this isn't something in the body of the email message, but instead looks like you have or had a corrupt system font that affected the text in the actual program windows/tabs.  The fact that it only happened once tends to infer that this may have just been a passing glitch with the font as it loaded and displayed.  If you still have that email and it opens correctly, then I would be very curious to see what text shows exactly in line with where the foreign looking characters display in the screenshot.

There is one member here known as hermesalpha who lives in China and can probably read Chinese.  I have posted a message in one of his open questions asking for his assistance.  There is another Chinese member here who is based in Hong Kong and I believe is Chinese.  I have done likewise in one of his closed questions.

Bill
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There are no meaningful words in that screenshoot in the PDF. The middle part is completely distorted (characters on top of each other). Only parts of left and right sides are legible. And there are empty squares also. I'm not sure if they are simplified characters (used in mainland China) or traditional characters (used in Hong Kong and Taiwan) because only a few characters on left and right side are legible (and these could be the same whether written with simplified or traditional script).
Thanks for posting hermesalpha.  It's appreciated.