[SamRichards]

HI I have a bit of an emergency: My mom says she has found strange passport photos downloaded on to her macbook air, in addition to .css and java script files. Is her computer being used to apply for credit cards remotely? has anyone heard of this scam. I had her delete some of the files. Should she be notifying credit agencies?

thanks very much in advance. She is the only mom i have!

[Thee Dude]

CSS as in the HTML file for style sheets? As a rule of thumb, if you find any strange cache of photos, chances are you've been hit with a virus. Most of the time though this is more associated with ads as opposed to passport photos.

Passport photos are odd. She may have encountered a scam, very well. You could notify the credit card agencies to be on the safe side and if there are multiple charges displayed you could very well elevate the case and get the necessary authorities involved. Who knows, you may have uncovered a careless hacker who is involved in an identity theft/ and pass forging ring!

[Bobbi Flekman]

You did not tell where they were. Clean up the temporary internet files and check if the .css and images are still there. In Safari that can be found in Safari menu itself ("Empty Cache..." and "Reset Safari..." )