Saturday, September 25, 2004

New Internet Tool Available to Fight Viruses and Key Loggers

There is a new tool available on the internet to help fight key-loggers, worms, Trojans and viruses, and it is free. The tool is called Process Library and it can be found at http://www.processlibrary.com.

Process Library can help you determine what programs are loaded and running on your computer, where they came from and if they pose a threat to you.

Using Process Library is simple. First, go to their website. When you are there, press the Ctrl+Alt+Del (referred to as control, alt, delete) buttons on your PC keyboard. Make sure that you hold all three buttons down at the same time. A window should open. This is the Windows Task Manager.

Near the top of the Task Manager are some tabs. One of them reads “Processes”. Click on it and you should see a list of programs running on your PC. Start at the top of the list and work down. As I right this, the first process on my list reads “ctfmon.exe”. That’s what I would type into the search box at Process Library.

Upon hitting the search button, a variety of information is returned to me on this process. The important thing to note is that the process is not some type of virus. I then move onto the next process.

While the online interface is free, don’t start it unless you have a little time on your hands. Process Library requires you to manually input running PC processes into their search engine. It will probably take you ten to fifteen minutes to complete this.

You should also know that Process Library will probably not be able to identify every process that you type into it. While this can be frustrating, keep in mind that the purpose for the library is to identify programs that can damage your system or invade your privacy.

When using Process Library, if you do run into a program that can’t be identified, they provide a suggested process page that you can submit to.

ACCESS suggests that if you are going to use Process Library, you reboot your PC first. This will clear out any discretionary programs that you have launched since the last time you booted.

If your system is running slow, or is displaying odd behavior, Process Library may be able to help.

by
Jim Malmberg