"Windows Messenger is trying to monitor your mouse movements and keyboard strokes"

[astridv]

Filed under 'computer messages you really don't need to see at one in the morning'. Funnily enough, google gave me no results on this message. However, I don't think I was being paranoid, for when I googled the suspect (msmsgs.exe) I did get interesting results. Looks like it's a virus/trojan/whatever disguising as the Windows Messenger exe file, but located in C:\program files\messenger instead of C:\Windows\System32 [eta: at least I think. I'm doing some more checking just to be sure. Because those computer wizkids online contradict themselves on that matter. But whatever, mine seems to be deactivated after I renamed the one in the messenger folder to msmsgs.exealt][eta again: all right, apparently those guys got it wrong and the exe in the messenger folder is harmless, if annoying. So the other one must have been the culprit... there were two of them running at the same time... weird.]

Anyway, looks like I caught the critter in time. Good thing I updated Zone Alarm today. Plus, I finally got that idiotic, useless Windows Messenger deleted from my startup folder as well. Have been trying that for a year.

I hope the system is clean now. Blch.