How protect laptop from sniffing and other stalking actions?

How protect laptop from sniffing and other stalking actions. Does format hdd stop sniffing and other stalking software ? I use Win 8.1, Avast.
How secure boot sector, i read something reletated to that , so what is your opinion?

""Lives in sector zero of your hard drive. As the hard drive starts to spin up, the virus is read into memory. Anything you do after this including repartition and reformat will have no effect because the virus in RAM is tagging along with you every step away. After you do all the things you did, none work, because the rogue file has attached and rewritten itself back into sector zero! happy

this technique has been used on computers for decades inculding Atari / Commodore / Mac / PC. It's the way virus' used to work by default.

This is why you need to boot from a safe and clean source such as a bootable OS CD, or a virus clean system floppy disk (with the tab open). By doing so, no files on the hard drive are actually in use. Because the computer is running from safe media, even though the infected boot sector has been accessed as the drive spun up, it has not been run.""

 

I am not talking about apps trojans and so which you randomly get online but phisically installed apps over USB to stalk specific individual. Yes, packets using local wirlesss or phisically using USB. I Know its very rare but what is potection against it ? Why do you think it is related to pc performance? When scamm stalk they just once have to take few kb of data passwords and nicknames.

I think that is hardest potection since stalking software is directly installed or/and pc settings are set to make stalking connection. What do you think what setting are needed to be checked to be safe from that?

 

I am not clear completly bcs i dont write or speak English often. Sorry.

Ok , so you are saying protection of internaly sniffing is the sam as it is against malwares installed during browsing on Internet ? At internal sniffing i understand stealing data using local wireless ( victim laptop is connecten on local wirelss network of stealer )

You claim that doesnt exist data stealing with usb ? Are you sure ? I disagree, I think USB which is set to autorun can take from specific folder passwords nicknames... That is perfect way to get data if stealer doesnt want leave tracks.

My question is, can such softwares survive hdd format bcs , i noticed when i make first OS instalation on brand new laptop IExplorer doesnt recognize anything, i mean Bing Search engine doesnt suggest any meaningful interets to user when he start writes a word what is not case when you have second fresh instalation of OS Windows.

I think there is possiblity that malware software can survive as it survives such data(bing data). What about "restore sectors " on hdd , is it possible there install malware which wont be affected by hdd formating ??