Messenger Service --> Marketing Popup

[wahrez]

Hey Guys

I've just received a pop-up on my screen which is trying to sell me something, it seems to have used the Windows Messenger Service (not to be confused with that annoying little program that runs in your taskbar), this has happened three times over the last two weeks on three different computers.

Here's a screen dump of the popup:

http://www.geneticwebs.com/popup.gif

Has anyone else experienced this? Is this caused by a virus or is it a security hole in my Firewall (Norton Personal Firewall)??

Is this legal?

...WahreZ

[muchmark]

Spam Masquerades as Admin Alerts (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,55795,00.html)

[RampageIII]

Gotta get that pop-up killer going again.:mad:

I've recently seen stuff that look like Windows Update alerts.

Can't stand this ****!:(

[BipolarBill]

All you have to do is Stop the Messenger service in Services and make it Manual.

[wahrez]

I had thought about simply stopping the service, but would rather find another way of blocking it.

From what the article above says I should be able to get around it by configuring my firewall to block Port 135 from all external communication.

The article also said that worm viruses can be transmitted this way, looks like Microsoft have made another huge snafu in their design!

..WahreZ

[Logan[TeamX]]

*Makes a mental note to check his router when he gets home*

[Mutant_Donkey]

thats why i use trillian. nothing of that sort.

[rangeral]

Messenger service is just an inhouse app if your not using it to talk to others on a network then easiest thing to do is what Bill said,

[Logan[TeamX]]

What's important to note is that is indeed a service within Windows NT (4.0, 5.0, and 5.1), which is enabled by default and starts automatically upon machine boot-up. You don't even need to be signed in to have it start spamming you, as it is a service, and not an application.

[Giblet Plus!]

Yet another way of spamming poor pc users :(