Keyloggers/Spyware/ help /

[papapa]

Hi, I have Windows and Ubuntu installed on my computer and it works just fine, the problem is my parents live in a third world country and their computers have been repaired many times by technicians, which now a days i wouldn't rely on..., but my parents cannot repair computers on their own, besides technicians over there aren't really expensive but as you may guess there's also lots of hacking, keylogging and phishing going around there, you could get nuts. Will formatting/erasing their computer's hard disk and installing ubuntu on them from the very beginning get rid of spyware and keyloggers or do you need to run any special software? In order to erase the hard disk can I use any formatting tool available for example in a ubuntu live-cd or are there some erasing tools which won't do their job right? Is there any good sofware that will get rid of keyloggers /spyware? do you know any reliable internet site where this subject is treated properly? any advice is welcome!

[sudodus]

It is one thing to wipe the HDD so that no trace will be left for the secret service of superpower countries (when they get physical access to the computer).

It is another thing to wipe the HDD, so that all the files will be gone, and not available or active. This is much simpler, and I would say that it is enough to reformat the drive. If you want to be even more sure about it, zeroise the drive too, but I would say it is not necessary in the case you describe. When all the files are gone, no spyware will remain.

[offgridguy]

Parted magic comes with a disk eraser tool included, how well it works ? I trust it.

[sudodus]

I noticed it is your first post. Welcome to the Ubuntu Forums :-)

Maybe I should also add this link

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BasicSecurity (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BasicSecurity)

[papapa]

ok, that helped, thanks!