[pchelpers] spyware
- From: "PcCowboy" <saddle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "pchelper" <pchelpers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <JW_Tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2003 18:51:51 -0500
This is new to me
Spyware Photographs Your Windows XP Desktop
We received a very disturbing letter from a WinXPnews reader last week:
"I was cleaning out the "unerase files" that Norton Anti-Virus holds when I
happened to look through them. I found a number of jpg files in the list.
They were named something like "2003-7-2_1-5-45.jpg," a record of a date and
time. I traced the folder to WINDOWS/system32/data. In it were more files
like this. One was created EXACTLY every five minutes. They also have a
thumbnail version. When I viewed them, I was shocked. There was a perfect
screenshot of my computer at that time! What if I have credit card numbers
or a private email on the screen at that time? Anyone with the right hack
could find these files and exploit them! Is this something that Microsoft is
doing to keep an eye out? My virus software can find nothing. Please, let
the readers know if it is a security issue."
Looks like someone installed a very malicious spyware program on this user's
computer. These kinds of screen capture spy applications are very effective
for capturing credit card information, user names, document and file system
data, and email reconnaissance information. There's a good chance that the
program is sending these screen shots to someone "out there" for review.
That's why it's so important to have a good spyware and scumware blocking
application. It doesn't matter which one you use, just use one! We use
PestPatrol and we've never been compromised, so you might want to check it
out:
http://www.winxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=030708SE-PestPatrol
Pc
Regards, John Durham (list moderator) <http://modecideas.com/contact.html?sig>
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