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This article has been reprinted with the gracious permission of
Speed Guide.net
an invaluable resource for advanced users.
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Visit our
Virus Info
or our
Links
page for information about Firewall Freeware
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By: C.G.
My day off. I'm messing with my computer, tweaking my Cable connection to the
max, upgrading my software, and so on. Well, I was updating my MS Office 2000
when something very interesting and alarming happened. I got to the
installation of the Office update, when Office Update informed me that there
were some Programs running. ATITv Player (I was watching some TV too,) and
RegLoad. Well, I have seen Regload.exe before, when I looked in MSConfig to
turn some startup programs off. But what is Regload.exe, you may ask, well I
wanted to know. So I
did a search on my Computer for
regload. I came up with 3 hits.
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Regload.exe
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Regload.hlp
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Regload.lgc
My curiosity has gotten the better of me I was thinking at this point. I almost
dismissed it as a part of Windows 98. Boy was I wrong. Well I right clicked on
Regload.exe and choose properties.
Here's what I found.
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Comments:
Registry Loading device.
Company Name: Microsoft Corporation
Internal Name: Key Phr33k
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Wait a second, what in the world is that? Not being a computer idiot, I know
what phreaking is, but what is a phreak proggie doing on my computer? Well the
name kind of gives it away. It copies all my keystrokes into a file. But what
file? Then I clicked on Regload.hlp.
*ding*
" The Regload.hlp file is not a valid help file, or is corrupted."
Really, then what is taking up One Meg of disk space??? That's where *Right
click , Open With* comes into play. Well well well, I opened it with WordPad
and boy was I surprised.
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Everything I had typed on my keyboard from 12/16/99 to
9/9/00 was staring me in the face. Oh my God. Everything, passwords, bank
accounts, credit card info, social security number, EVERYTHING, was in this
file. It was only recently that I started using a firewall to block access to
and from my computer. It kind of explains why my Active Light on my Cable
Modem has been flashing randomly.
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Time to put a Stop to this garbage. I immediately
stopped Regload from running, deleted all the Regload files, opened the
registry, did a search for all Regload instances, deleted them all. Made sure
there were no entries in MSConfig that tried to load Regload. I probably have
successfully deleted all references, but now I'm paranoid. I'm going to format
C: and reload Windows.
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This is to inform everybody of the dangers of the Internet. It is a warning,
don't let it happen to you. I may never know where my keystrokes are or what
they are being used for, but it can't be good. Get a firewall, secure your
computer. We may never stop this from happening, but a least we can slow it
down a little.
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Thanks for your time,
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