Messenger Serivce Pop-ups?

[Vic]

Once or twice a day I receive these strange pop-ups
titled "Messenger Service" which show up in the System
Event Viewer as application popup. They are not legible
except for a few words here and there as if translated
from another language.
These are not caught by a pop-up remover, a spyware
remover or the antivirus system I have installed... Do
other people get these and have you figured out how to get
rid of them? Thank you!

 

[Steve Parry [MVP]]

In

Once or twice a day I receive these strange pop-ups
titled "Messenger Service" which show up in the System
Event Viewer as application popup. They are not legible
except for a few words here and there as if translated
from another language.
These are not caught by a pop-up remover, a spyware
remover or the antivirus system I have installed... Do
other people get these and have you figured out how to get
rid of them? Thank you!

this indicates that your system has security issues ....

Look at putting a firewall in place, there are many retail and
free ones such as www.kerio.com

a short term measure to stop this (assuming you do'nt need the
Messenger service) is goto

Start
Run
type
services.msc
click OK

<Services window opens>

navigate to Messenger
double click on Messenger to open

alter drop down from Automatic to Disabled
press the Stop button
click OK

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

This type of spam has become quite common over the past year, and
unintentionally serves as a valid security "alert." It demonstrates
that you haven't been taking sufficient precautions while connected to
the Internet. Your data probably hasn't been compromised by these
specific advertisements, but if you're open to this exploit, you are
open to other threats, such as the Blaster and Welchia worms that
recently swept cross the Internet. Install and use a decent,
properly configured firewall. (Merely disabling the messenger
service, as some people recommend, only hides the symptom, and does
little or nothing to truly secure your machine.) And ignoring or just
"putting up with" the security gap represented by these messages is
particularly foolish.

Messenger Service of Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;168893

Messenger Service Window That Contains an Internet Advertisement
Appears
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=330904

Stopping Advertisements with Messenger Service Titles
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/communicate/stopspam.asp

Blocking Ads, Parasites, and Hijackers with a Hosts File
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

Oh, and be especially wary of people who advise you to do nothing
more than disable the messenger service. Disabling the messenger
service, by itself, is a "head in the sand" approach to computer
security. The real problem is _not_ the messenger service pop-ups;
they're actually providing a useful, if annoying, service by acting as
a security alert. The true problem is the unsecured computer, and
you've been advised to merely turn off the warnings. How is this
helpful?


Bruce Chambers

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You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[vicbee]

Great! thanks a lot for your detailed response. I
frenquently update MS security with the available patches
and Packs, I run an excellent anti-virus (NOD32) and have
spyware protection...but it seems that's not good
enough... Will follow your advice and get to the bottom of
this! Thanks again.