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That is unltimately your responsibility. OpenVPN should be one of a few "modules" in your security system, not the only one. Access to the whole local network should be by default locked down completely from the outside, any consumer-grade router comes preconfigured like that. There are no doors into your computer except for those you open yourself. If I were such an individual, I wouldn't have announced myself like that, silence gets me waay further than yelling into the room that I'm here. The more plausible explanation is that you or someone else opened the door to your PC somehow before, maybe through a successful scam at some point, and someone connected back to you some time later when he/she thought you weren't looking. Reinstalling was the correct thing to do, though. Well… no. Screen sharing software for example is smart enough to tell the attacker the connection is down, after which the sharing client surely will reconnect via the new VPN connection. Attacker may get a notification that the victim is online again, reconnects to the victim and the fun continues. Yes, some of them listen to popular demand, no matter its sense. Massive plus points for customer care, of course, but if the measure is a placebo, you're ultimately tricking the customer into thinking they are safe. Always know that VPNs don't solve problems you have on your local PC. They can only be seen as building stones in your security concept. If you click the wrong link, your computer gets infected, no matter if it was clicked while being connected to a VPN or not. Most people don't even need such a concept. Their only threat are malicious links they weren't able to filter out, either through technical means or simply by using the all-in-one security solution brain.exe.