Does this sound like a trojan horse?

My son's WinMX has been acting odd lately. There's a two or three-second delay with any button he clicks on. When he tried a search last night, I noticed in the firewall monitor that there was more data going out from our computer than was coming in. When I closed WinMX, I suddenly got a flurry of "blocked access" notices from the firewall (Zone Alarm). Does that sound like there's a trojan horse in our computer?

 

Hi Tom J
No, not really. It sounds like ZoneAlarm was doing it's job. When you closed out of WinMX...did you infact close all the way out..or was the icon still down in the systray down by the clock? If it was....right click it and exit.

If you're unsure still.... you can download and run Tuascan.......and of course a recent and updated virus scan:

Perhaps just use a free online scanner such as:
Grisoft
Housecall
Panda
Symantec

And for Trojans.....might I suggest:
Tauscan

Daizy

 

You were right, Daizy. I ran Symantec and Tauscan and both came up negative.

I guess I don't really know how file exchange programs work. When I saw all that data going out from our computer, I guess it was trying to find sources for what my son was looking for, and not sending out files or whatever. And all those Zone Alarm alerts after I shut WinMX down (from the file menu and the system tray), I assume those sources were trying to confirm that our computer had "disappeared ".

At any rate, my mind is eased. Thank you very much, Daizy.

 

You're most welcome! Good for you, for double checking to be sure.

As I say, the biggest thing with most all of those file sharing programs is that they're often left running, even when you "X" out of them. Hence the need to look down in the systray for the icon to be gone.

Daizy