backweb and zonealarm warning?

Hi, my wife has plain free zonealarm (recent version, prob. no older than 6 mos.) on her PC. There was a warning tonite from ZA that [no quotes] "backweb-7288971.exe" was trying to access our ISP's DNS from her PC. So what is backweb, and should I have permitted it to go to the DNS (I didn't)? Thanks.

 

Backweb depends on who put it on the computer. F-Secure uses a backweb.exe to update the anti-virus definitions. This page lists it as adware. Some modems manufacturers includes this in their drivers as a means to 'update' their drivers. More on this Google search
It was a good idea to stop the outgoing, it seems more like adware than anything else. Poke around the above google search and you will see what I mean.

 

Thanks. It's also been months since I ran ad-aware on that PC. Will do that first.

 

Paul - before you run ad-aware (since it's been a while) you should download the latest version. Major revision several months ago and the latest is lots better to use IMO and has a greatly expanded list of malware/spyware it finds.

 

Thank you. I haven't installed Ad-aware 6 on my wife's PC yet, will do soon. But I found what the "backweb" program was related to -- inside Kodak picture taking software, backweb is a planted program to go to the Kodak website to check for updates. We won't.