Windows certainly offers several features related to privacy and security regarding access to the system. However, there may be cases in which other users access the system without our permission. That is why now we are going to show you how to check all this on the PC. It may be the case that we suspect that someone has accessed and is using our computer when we are away. Moreover, this is possible both at home and in the office. It is likely that a co-worker, roommate, partner, or anyone else may have access to the computer without our permission. Evidently, this would translate into accessing stored personal or confidential information. For this reason, today we will learn about how to check if someone is using your PC without permission.
Keep your device safe from prying eyes.
It is always advisable to access the system with a password. However, someone in our environment may have seen us enter it. In case you have any doubts, we will see below how to perform the relevant check. In addition, there are several methods that we can use for these verification tasks, as we will see.
Check the Windows Event Viewer
Foremost, let’s take a look at a very fascinating feature of Microsoft’s system. We are referring to the event viewer. This is where all events that occur on Windows are stored, including logon, of course. Therefore, this is a good element that allows us to check if someone has accessed our computer without our permission. We can open this section by simply typing its name in the search box on the taskbar.
Next, in the left pane, we go to Windows/System Logs. At that moment, in the central panel of the tool will appear all the events happened in the operating system. Therefore, we just have to browse through them and look for the last logon. In this way we will check whether the time coincides, or not, with the last time we turned on the PC.
View browser history
We can also use some tricks that allow us to perform this check. Generally, if an unauthorized user is using our computer, it is very likely that he/she is using the installed Internet browser. Therefore, in this case, we can always take a look at the stored browsing history. Once there, we will check the last visited pages. If they are not the sites that we loaded in the last session, we will have to take the appropriate measures.
View PC USB device history
Another very effective method for these tasks is to take a look at the history of USB devices connected to our computer. This allows us to check first hand if any unfamiliar USB flash drives have recently been connected to our PC without our consent. To achieve this, we will use the system command line. First, we access it by typing CMD in the Windows search box. In the new window that opens now, we only have to type the following command:
reg query hklm\system\currentcontrolset\enum\usbstor /s
Take a look at recent archives
In this case, and as a preventive measure, we can activate a function that will help us to check if someone has accessed our computer. We refer to the recent files that have been used, which will serve as a test. For it, we opened the application of Windows Settings, and we located in Personalization.
Next, we click in the section of Start, and we locate Show recently opened items, something that we activate. This way we will see in Startup all the files that have been opened in the last sessions with the PC. Okay, so we have seen how to check if someone has used your computer without your permission. See you later!
