Adware ?

Since this morning (2nd March) I have been bombarded by
popup messages claiming that my computer is infected by various malware,
spyware and god knows what and wanting me to download (ie buy) some
unspecified new spyware protection.

Three times I have disconnected from the internet, rebooted and run scans
offline with my Norton Internet Security. Each time it has found nothing.
The last time, I ran LiveUpdate first, just to check that my Norton was up
to date. It was.

So what is this ? Some new software selling scam that Norton Internet
Security can't protect against ?
Just wondering if anyone here has met this and knows what to do about it.
Has it installed a process I can delete ?

Jim Hawkins

Jim Hawkins wrote:

> Since this morning (2nd March) I have been bombarded by
> popup messages claiming that my computer is infected by various malware,
> spyware and god knows what and wanting me to download (ie buy) some
> unspecified new spyware protection.


Do you wonder?

> Three times I have disconnected from the internet, rebooted and run scans
> offline with my Norton Internet Security. Each time it has found nothing.
> The last time, I ran LiveUpdate first, just to check that my Norton was up
> to date. It was.


So what?

> So what is this ? Some new software selling scam that Norton Internet
> Security can't protect against ?


Norton Internet Security can protect?

> Just wondering if anyone here has met this and knows what to do about it.
> Has it installed a process I can delete ?


Most likely, but this won't stop it from reappearing.

Jim Hawkins wrote:
> Since this morning (2nd March) I have been bombarded by
> popup messages claiming that my computer is infected by various malware,
> spyware and god knows what and wanting me to download (ie buy) some
> unspecified new spyware protection.
Are these messages from Norton ?

This is a common way to get you to install malware - vague, non-specific
claims about your PC that aim to panic you into downloading a bit aof
dodgy code.
Don't do it !!!

>
> Three times I have disconnected from the internet, rebooted and run scans
> offline with my Norton Internet Security. Each time it has found nothing.
> The last time, I ran LiveUpdate first, just to check that my Norton was up
> to date. It was.
I'm not a fan of Norton - too many problems with it over the years. Go
find Spybot Search & Destroy, one of the better malware scanners amd AVG
or Antivir for free antivirus tools. Trend do a online AV scanner I've
found useful in teh past.


> So what is this ? Some new software selling scam that Norton Internet
> Security can't protect against ?
> Just wondering if anyone here has met this and knows what to do about it.
> Has it installed a process I can delete ?
>
Get a better browser - Firefox + Adblock Plus and amake sure your
windows firewall is enabled.

VH.

Jim Hawkins wrote:
> Since this morning (2nd March) I have been bombarded by
> popup messages claiming that my computer is infected by various malware,
> spyware and god knows what and wanting me to download (ie buy) some
> unspecified new spyware protection.
>
> Three times I have disconnected from the internet, rebooted and run scans
> offline with my Norton Internet Security. Each time it has found nothing.
> The last time, I ran LiveUpdate first, just to check that my Norton was up
> to date. It was.
>
> So what is this ? Some new software selling scam that Norton Internet
> Security can't protect against ?
> Just wondering if anyone here has met this and knows what to do about it.
> Has it installed a process I can delete ?
>
> Jim Hawkins
>
Some time ago I was receiving messages from Windows Messenger telling me the
registry was screwed and I should click this link to get a cleaner. Someone
hear told me that it was 'messenger spam' from the windows messenger. The
correction was to go to Computer>Manage>Services and App>Services and find
Messenger and disable it (OK if you are not using it yourself for sending
messages).

Also you could try Ad-aware or Spybot because I understand that none of the
malware detectives gets 100% of evil.

On Mon, 3 Mar 2008, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.computer.security, in article
<13sneu8dmlvaa65@news.supernews.com>, Jim Hawkins wrote:

>Since this morning (2nd March) I have been bombarded by popup messages
>claiming that my computer is infected by various malware, spyware and
>god knows what and wanting me to download (ie buy) some unspecified
>new spyware protection.

And you can't be bothered to use a search engine and look for something
like 'windows popup spam'? It's a rather common problem.

>Three times I have disconnected from the internet, rebooted and run
>scans offline with my Norton Internet Security. Each time it has found
>nothing. The last time, I ran LiveUpdate first, just to check that my
>Norton was up to date. It was.

Norton Internet Security can't protect against stuff you've enabled.

>So what is this ? Some new software selling scam that Norton Internet
>Security can't protect against ?

No, it's an Internet service microsoft felt you would find useful,
called Internet Messenger. It's been around for at least seven or
eight years. It's a microsoft feature that emulates an old UNIX
service that had been found to be unsafe about twenty years ago and
is rarely even seen today for that reason.

>Just wondering if anyone here has met this and knows what to do about it.

Web Results 1 - 10 of about 197,000 for Windows Messenger SPAM XP.
(0.14 seconds)

Messenger Service window that contains an Internet advertisement ...
Message Text. These messages are also known as "messenger spam." Back
to the top .... MSN Messenger 5.0. , Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC
Edition 2005 ...
support.microsoft.com/kb/330904

>Has it installed a process I can delete ?

Do understand that there really isn't a Mal-ware Fairy that flutters
about looking for systems to wave her Magic Wand over - P00F and your
system is infected. Malware is installed by users clicking on some
icon because they don't know what it means and just want to get the
pop-up message out of the way so they can surf. Microsoft realizes
that most computer users are to st00pid to be using a digital watch
much less a computer, and enable all kinds of wonderful things that
the user might need. If this creates a security problem, that isn't
microsoft's problem, is it?

Old guy

"Gualtier Malde" <valacapt@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:C56dndTi562Co1HanZ2dnUVZ_uKpnZ2d@comcast.com. ..
> Jim Hawkins wrote:
>> Since this morning (2nd March) I have been bombarded by
>> popup messages claiming that my computer is infected by various malware,
>> spyware and god knows what and wanting me to download (ie buy) some
>> unspecified new spyware protection.
>>
>> Three times I have disconnected from the internet, rebooted and run scans
>> offline with my Norton Internet Security. Each time it has found
>> nothing.
>> The last time, I ran LiveUpdate first, just to check that my Norton was
>> up
>> to date. It was.
>>
>> So what is this ? Some new software selling scam that Norton Internet
>> Security can't protect against ?
>> Just wondering if anyone here has met this and knows what to do about it.
>> Has it installed a process I can delete ?
>>
>> Jim Hawkins
>>
> Some time ago I was receiving messages from Windows Messenger telling me
> the registry was screwed and I should click this link to get a cleaner.
> Someone hear told me that it was 'messenger spam' from the windows
> messenger. The correction was to go to Computer>Manage>Services and
> App>Services and find Messenger and disable it (OK if you are not using it
> yourself for sending messages).
>
> Also you could try Ad-aware or Spybot because I understand that none of
> the malware detectives gets 100% of evil.
>

After reading comparisons of the various malware fixers I downloaded
and ran Spyware Detector.
It found a large number of iffy files and deleted all but a few which needed
a reboot.
Since that reboot my machine has been completely free of popups and runs
faster.

Jim Hawkins

Jim Hawkins wrote:


> Since that reboot my machine has been completely free of popups and runs
> faster.


And is still compromised.

On Tue, 04 Mar 2008, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.computer.security, in article
<pd7qs3127cjocri9vejqv3bumpbss2sv7n@4ax.com>, Jim Watt wrote:

>(Moe Trin) wrote:

>> Malware is installed by users clicking on some icon because they
>> don't know what it means and just want to get the pop-up message
>> out of the way so they can surf.
>
>Thats mostly the cause, however I did come across one
>which was installed in a hidden iframe on a website
>and which installed a trojan silently on MY machine.

while you were running the system as... administrator?

>so shit does indeed happen.

[endeavour ~]$ uptime
12:51pm up 90 days, 21:56, 20 users, load average: 0.06, 0.03, 0.00
[endeavour ~]$

Those 20 users on this system are me, but under several usernames.
The name I'm posting as is one of those users, while another is a
special user named "notme". That user owns his own home directory,
a mail queue file, and that's it. (Actually, no normal user can do
anything to the 'system' files/directories.) The user has no 'write'
permission to anywhere else on the system except the /tmp/ directory
(and that is mounted 'no-execute') and users don't have permissions
to _read_ or even search the files/directories of other users. The only
thing "notme" can do is to trash his own home directory - which is
normally empty anyway, because that account is ONLY used for surfing.

>Have now switched to firefox for most browsing as
>it lacks many of the 'features' of IE ...

I have three browsers, and normally use the one with the least number
of features because it's a lot faster than the others. If a site
doesn't render correctly, I _may_ fire up a more capable browser, but
I'm much more likely to simply put the site on my "don't bother" list
as there are usually many other sites to choose from. This is
especially true if the site complains that I'm not using Internot
Exploiter, or that I need to enable some plugin to get the best
experience from the site.

Old guy