Jenna,
I highly doubt the intrusion came via the chat. There are trojans that will tell you that you have been hacked to get you to download/purchase a specific piece of software to "protect" yourself. It would be trivial to make one that recognizes that you have a java applet running and tell you that is the problem. Unfortunately, under the guise of protecting you, these programs allow other pieces of spyware and trojans to reside safely on your computer. I recommend the following:
1) AVG anti-virus at
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1
2) Ad-Aware at
http://www.lavasoft.com/ (click downloads)
3) Spybot S&D at
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/
These are all free or have free versions. AVG runs pretty much automatically once it's set up, checking for updates and scanning your computer daily.
Ad-Aware and Spybot will need to be run manually. How frequently depends on how much you use the interenet. A heavy user should scan daily.
My question to you is WHAT told you you had an intrusion and why should you trust IT? If it wasn't a piece of software you installed, chances are IT is the intruder.
Allbi
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