The Hunter
June 16th, 2005, 06:41 AM
Security Tips: Identify Malware Hiding in Windows' System Folders
It's no fun to go into Task Manager and discover that a bunch of mysterious processes are running on your PC. In the case of the unknowns, you may ask yourself how much of this stuff you actually want. Or more seriously, if anything on your machine is actually doing harm.
Unfortunately, few of us have more than a passing familiarity with what's under Windows' hood: the programs that run it and that run alongside it. In this column, I'll explain how to identify most Windows system files (and to research an unknown file) so you can tell the good ones from the miscreants. I'll also show you how to trace every application running on your PC, including the newest menace to emerge--hidden rootkit files.
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/articl...d,120795,00.asp
It's no fun to go into Task Manager and discover that a bunch of mysterious processes are running on your PC. In the case of the unknowns, you may ask yourself how much of this stuff you actually want. Or more seriously, if anything on your machine is actually doing harm.
Unfortunately, few of us have more than a passing familiarity with what's under Windows' hood: the programs that run it and that run alongside it. In this column, I'll explain how to identify most Windows system files (and to research an unknown file) so you can tell the good ones from the miscreants. I'll also show you how to trace every application running on your PC, including the newest menace to emerge--hidden rootkit files.
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/articl...d,120795,00.asp