IE7 is attempting to monitor user activities?

Following the installation of the security update KB937143 recently downloaded in the MS August security downloads my Zone alarm pro firewall warned me that:-

IE7 is attempting to monitor user activities on this computer?

Allow or Deny it

I can not say that I am too happy about this, anyone have an explanation why MS want to do this?

I have had a look at the Writeup for KB937143 on the MS web site but can see no information relating to monitoring my web browsing activities?

 

It's one of the reasons I seldom use IE. I noticed that many were denying IE the right to monitor and their browsing seemed unaffected by it. Why not set you ZA to deny IE?

 

Thank you very much PeteC

You obviously have a much better search technique than I,
I had tried honestly.

Now for the good news

You will recall that in my original request for help

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?p=360730#post360730

I mentioned IE7 closing down when I click on a PDF download and saying default mail client not installed correctly when clicking on a web based e-mail address.
Well in one of the articles you featured above, someone mentioned they could not access their pension funds and IE7 closed down when they tried? This person had previously denied keyboard logging by Zone Alarm?

I remembered that on this occasion after loading the new MS Security upgrades I told ZA to allow the Keyboard logging and everything has worked fine
But after reading the article I have experimented and found that if I deny keyboard logging via ZA if I now click on an e-mail address on a web page I get the message that default mail client is not correctly installed. When I reinstate keyboard logging it is OK again

So if some else brings up this subject you can perhaps enlighten them.

The long and the short of it is that you helped me solve the problem and I appreciate it

 

Did TeMerc have any comments ref above

 

Thank you for all of your help PeteC and putting my mind at rest

I have put a message on the Zone Alarm Forum site mentioning the problems I have had and how to correct them

Cheers

 

This was the answer I recieved from ZA Forum The last paragraph and ZA forum address comment that IE7 will not function correctly if keyboard logging is denied:-

"This is normal. The ZA was just alerting you of what the IE was doing. The IE will access the memory and the keyboard for various things such as Windows Updates or certain site activities. These can be allowed if you wish.

To eliminate these alerts, you could right click the Internet Explorer in the Program listing and open the Options. Check the first two items listed and the alerts should disappear. The IE will be more of a security risk now, but it will have no more alerts concerning the keylogger... "
Oldsod
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As a general theory, a pc will track and record everything you do. IE will have a "history" log of places you visit - you can adjust that to a degree, there's auto-fill/auto-complete that can keep and track/auto-fill your most often used info., there's a track of some of your keyword searches, etc. , if you've ever gotten "send error report to Microsoft" something had to be recorded,tracked,logged. ZA was doing it's job reporting possible suspicious behavior and IE/Microsoft was doing what it normally does in a pc.
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Additional notes: You can set IE - to three green bars- super trust level > Access - two green checks > the rest " ? " = adjust to your taste. The Internet Explorer warning sometimes comes after IE is upgraded or changed/improved with their Microsoft Updates(Microsoft recently had one, and is planning future improvements in IE security); or when you've upgraded ZA versions, even small upgrades.
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Actually, you should "allow' when ZA gives you that alert. If you read the alert carefully, it does not say that ZA found a 'keylogger' in Microsoft/InternetExplorer - it says the activities could monitor/log keystrokes and may interfere with privacy(some words to that effect); Microsoft has not put a 'keylogger'= the malware, on your pc or is using one on "you ". If click 'deny' on that alert IE/Microsoft will probably stop working properly. See - http://forums.zonealarm.com/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=win_za_msgs&message.id=16414