From Leo's mailbag:
> From: A Computer User
> Sent: April 24, 2006
> To: Ask Leo!
> Subject: getting massive bouces...
>
> Leo,
> --------------
> Help! I seem to have an undiscoverable Trojan of some kind. I
> am running Windows XP SP2, with automatic updates, plus
> Windows Firewall, and current Norton Antivirus (and I've been
> downloading the daily updates during the past couple of
> weeks). I have XoftSpy, Spybot, and AdAwareSE. Also, on
> another computer I have manually removed viruses so I have
> already checked the signature lines of all my Windows .exe
> files. Nonetheless.... Saturday before last I was aware of
> my system "grinding" noisily and usage was zooming to 80%+.
> Couldn't find anything wrong. Next thing I know I was
> receiving mailer bouncebacks to my AOL address, these were
> for spam mailings connected to Belgium and other countries.
> I did everything I could to my system (scans, checking
> everything in Task Manager, etc.), and thought the problem
> solved, but now it's Saturday night again and the SAME thing
> happened! Are you aware of any mass-mailing Trojan set to
> run this way? I've been to the Symantec website and found
> nothing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I see two possible issues here...
80% CPU usage: I'd fireup task manager, or process explorer
(http://ask-leo.com/d-procexp) and see if you can tell what
process is using all the CPU. It may, or may not, be related
to the mail issue ... I kind of suspect not.
Bounces: most spambots will actually spoof the from address,
so you might not even get bounces from email generated if there
were a spambot on your machine. Assuming you're totally up to
date on both anti-virus and anti-spyware scans, I actually
suspect this instead:
http://ask-leo.com/someones_sending_from_my_email_address_how_do_i_stop_them.html
Thanks for asking,
Leo
Article 1240
| Category:
Viruses and Malware
