Double extension file.

[Budfred]

After my hassles with ZoneAlarm yesterday (still unresolved, went back to free version), I found that my internet was starting up at boot today and this worried me since I was online for a while yesterday without my firewall. I eventually figured out that the Connect Automatically box had gotten checked somehow and that seems to be what caused it. However, in the meanwhile I ran Spybot, AdAware and Trojan Hunter. No spyware or trojans were found, but Trojan Hunter pointed out the file GLF21C2.TMP.EXE in my Windows/Temp folder. I opened it in Notepad, but it was almost all encoded so I couldn't tell what it was for. It took about 162,304 in size, so it was not a tiny file. I renamed it to an OLD extension and it didn't make any difference on Restart. Any ideas if this thing is dangerous??

Thanks,

[mjc]

Since it was in the temp folder and you were allowed to rename it, I would say it was a leftover install file. One of the advantages of clearing the temp folders regularly is cleaning up that kind of stuff.

TH will always catch a double extension file, whether or not it is malicious.

[Paul Komski]

The real nasties have a second extension, which is "always" hidden in windows, such as .pif Thus the file abc.txt.pif will appear to be abc.txt in windows explorer and can fool one into thinking it is a normal txt file.

[Daniel-Man]

I recommend downloading History Kill 2003, which automatically deletes cookies, temp files, index.dat, recent documents, autocomplete and of course history. I find it very useful if you waste 10 minutes every day doing this stuff manually. You can also allow cookies and change which options you want to happen, e.g. u can enable it to keep recent documents or anything else if u want. I find that the significant value of this program is that it clears the temp files, which hackers, warez and many other malicious websites may upload or execute code which can be used to hack you. By the way Trojan Hunter seems to be one of the best up to date trojan scanners I've found. Unfortunately it only has a 30 day trial period and cracks are IMPOSSIBLE to find on the net, not to mention risky!! lol