MESSENGER SERVICE

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul Koukos
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Paul Koukos

I started getting these ads last night even thought I am only reading mail and not on the browser where the other ads pop up.

Most of them send me to something called: StopMessenger.com and it tells me that I have to buy.

What might have caused this on my Win XP Home to just start?

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Paul Koukos

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Secure your hacker prone computer:

If they say messenger service in the title bar, these popups have nothing to
do with MSN messenger or Windows messenger. What this is a new way for
spammers to attack your computer and send you pop-up ads. If you receive
these ads it means that your computers netbios ports are wide open to the
internet and this could be a real security problem. What you should do is
install a good firewall that will block the ports the spammers use and stop
the ads. A good place to start is Zone Alarm ( www.zonelabs.com ) for an
inbound/outbound blocking firewall or use the inbound blocking only firewall
built in to XP. If needed configure the XP firewall to block ports 135,
137-139 and 445. Zone Alarm will block these ports by default.

Use this site to test some of your ports security:
https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

You can disable the messenger service, which is the service the spammers
exploit, but it isn't needed to stop the ads and disabling the service will
not secure your computer from outside attacks or block the open netbios
ports.

Note: If the Messenger service is stopped, messages from the Alerter
service (notifications from your antivirus software, for example) are
not transmitted. If the Messenger service is turned off, any services
that explicitly depend on the Messenger service do not start, and an
error message is logged in the System event log. For this reason,
Microsoft recommends that you install a firewall and configure it to
block NetBIOS and RPC traffic instead of turning off the Messenger
service.

If the pop-ups appear while surfing web pages then download and install one
of the many pop-up blocker programs. Search www.download.com for popup
blocker, you’ll find many free ones.

Also get a good spyware cleaner -- http://security.kolla.de/



Paul Koukos said:
I started getting these ads last night even thought I am only reading mail
Click to expand...
and not on the browser where the other ads pop up.
 
X-No-Archive: Yes

Paul Koukos bashed at the keyboard and said:
I started getting these ads last night even thought I am only reading
mail and not on the browser where the other ads pop up.

Most of them send me to something called: StopMessenger.com and it
tells me that I have to buy.

What might have caused this on my Win XP Home to just start?
Click to expand...

Hi Paul,

If your messages look like this: http://tinyurl.com/is9k


The messages are coming from "The Messenger Service" (NOT MSN Messenger)

However, the messenger service is not the problem.
The real problem is the fact that you are not running a firewall, or if you
are, you haven't blocked ports 137-139

A good firewall can be found at www.zonelabs.com

To remove the ability for anyone in the world to pop up messages on your
computer, you can disable the Messenger service.
Its easy to reverse at a later time if you wish to do so.

The small (free) "ShootTheMessenger" Messenger service enabler/disabler will
turn off the messenger services for you.

http://grc.com/

Or you can do it manually.

*Windows XP Home*
Click Start->Settings ->Control Panel
Click Performance and Maintenance
Click Administrative Tools
Double click Services Scroll
down and highlight "Messenger"
Right-click the highlighted line and choose Properties.
Click the STOP button.
Select Disable or Manual in the Startup Type scroll bar
Click OK

*Windows XP Professional*
Click Start->Settings ->Control Panel
Click Administrative Tools
Click Services
Double click Services Scroll
down and highlight "Messenger"
Right-click the highlighted line and choose Properties.
Click the STOP button.
Select Disable or Manual in the Startup Type scroll bar
Click OK

HTH
 
Hi Paul - Based on the previous advice you appear to have solved your
immediate Windows Messenger problem. However, if you have an NT-based OS
such as XP or Win2k, you should probably also specifically block the
following additional ports as well: UDP 135, and TCP 593 (in addition to
NetBios ports 135, 137-139 and 445 to fix Messenger), and install the very
important 823980 patch from MS03-026, here:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=823980.
--
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP
Please respond in original thread in Newsgroup.


In
 
Also, if its a home machne, just disable the messenger service on your
Windows, you don't need it for home machines and rarely need it in
corporate environments.

Go to Admin Tools-->Services-->Messenger. Stop it and change it to
disabled or manual.
 
Greetings --

Please stop posting potentially harmful advice. What are you, a
hacker-wannabe? Why else would you be deliberately posting bad
advice? Are you trying to give people a false sense of security by
having them turn off what are, in effect, valid security warnings,
while still leaving their PCs open to potential exploitation?

Disabling the messenger service 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 service by acting as a security alert. The
true problem is the unsecured computer, and you're only
advice, however well-intended, was to turn off the warnings. How is
this helpful?

Equivalent Scenario: You over-exert your shoulder at work or
play, causing bursitis. After weeks of annoying and sometimes
excruciating pain whenever you try to reach over your head, you go to
a doctor and say, while demonstrating the motion, "Doc, it hurts when
I do this." The doctor, being as helpful as you are, replies, "Well,
don't do that."

The only true way to secure the PC, short of disconnecting it from
the Internet, is to install and *properly* configure a firewall; just
installing one and letting it's default settings handle things is no
good. Unfortunately, this does require one to learn a little bit more
about using a computer than used to be necessary.

You've apparently had very little experience supporting corporate
LANs and enterprise or network level anti-virus solutions. While it's
true that the average home consumer has little or no use for the
messenger service, disabling said service does nothing but hide the
security problem. The system "resources" freed by disabling the
messenger service are insignificant.


Bruce Chambers

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