Strange notepad.exe trojan ???

[alanza]

Everytime I start the machine, Notepad.exe appears in the task monitor. I end task on it, and remove it from my start up.
However it ALWAYS comes back.
It tries to connect to the internet, but ZoneAlarm Pro denies it. It often kills my DNS, until I close it. WHAT is this ?

Thanks, email direct.

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-Adrian

[JANDOENT]

Hey alanza, Welcome to Speed Guide. Is the notepad blank and just opens at start up or is it attached to another proggie? If symantec doesn't find anything, DL and try this anti trogan proggie; http://www.anti-trojan.net/home.asp?l=en
If nothing is found, you might try to remove task monitor from startup. It will put itself back in maybe with out note pad this time. If not you will probably need to search your registry or you can go to START> find> files and folders, then type in Notepad.exe and track down everywhere it shows up, then remove it. Let me know what happens.

[quickfoot]

You should run an antivirus scan to make sure you aren't infected with a virus or a trojan.

You can download a free trial version of norton antivirus from www.symantec.com. (http://www.symantec.com.)

I have done several virus and trojan scanning tests and found Norton to be the leader in detecting and removing virus and trojans.

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Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer

BSD is for people who love Unix -
Linux is for people who hate Microsoft

[alanza]

Thanks for the replys, I installed the Symantec demo and came up with 2 different viri. Notepad.exe was loading some other file, that was creating a back door, and also was spreading across my LAN. All connected machines were infected. Cleanup was simple and quick - THANKS.
No more crashes, and random NO DNS errors.
THANKS again.

Originally posted by JANDOENT:
Hey alanza, Welcome to Speed Guide. Is the notepad blank and just opens at start up or is it attached to another proggie? If symantec doesn't find anything, DL and try this anti trogan proggie; http://www.anti-trojan.net/home.asp?l=en
If nothing is found, you might try to remove task monitor from startup. It will put itself back in maybe with out note pad this time. If not you will probably need to search your registry or you can go to START> find> files and folders, then type in Notepad.exe and track down everywhere it shows up, then remove it. Let me know what happens.

[JANDOENT]

Hey alanza, congradulations, I'm glad that you weree able to correct your problem http://www.speedguide.net/ubb/smile.gif However, it doesn't always have a happy ending, so be careful of where you go and what you DL. It is good that you have ZAPro, check the logs occasionally so see if the virus comes back.