Fake System Notification Boxes, Maybe

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support (More info?)

You may want to try going to Start/Run/services.msc, and disable the
Messenger service. Hope this helps!

"Dennis M. Marks" wrote:

> My brother-in-law has a big problem with adware which we are slowly getting
> rid of. He sometimes gets notification boxes that indicate that they are
> system generated referring to some problem with a box to click to clean the
> problem. He usually just clicks on the X to close the box. I am not
> referring to obvious adware.
>
> These may be legitimate system messages. It would be very easy to create an
> adware popup that looks exactly like a system message box, at lease to a
> novice. Would there be any danger to click on a yes, fix or any other
> button? I assume that if someone has access to the computer and wants to do
> damage he could do it directly without displaying a fake message.
>
> I assume that the worst that could happen would be a transfer to a web site.
> He has SP2 and obviously would get notified of any attempted downloads. It
> this true?
>
> --
> Dennis Marks
> denmarks@yahoo.com
>
>
>