CPU Usage always @ 100%

[John]

My computer has slowed to a crawl - it is an XP machine
with 256DDR memory with 80 gig drive. I have run
performance measdures and everything is compressed and
defragmented. Should be smoking!

I recently noticed that cpu usage is always at 100% and,
in particular, regfilter.exe is always in the high 90%
usage. These numbers are based on just the desktop
displayed with no active programs running.

Thoughts???

[NoNoBadDog!]

You have a trojan. Your system is infected. It is constantly scanning your
computer for changes to the registry and will hack them back to the way it
wants your registry, and is then filtering for software/info/credit
cards/passwords etc. Your activities are being recorded and forwarded.

I would recommend a format and reinstall, but you may not wish to do that.
System restore is useless as it is most likely infected. I would do a
complete trojan scan at a minimum. The only way to be sure of complete
removal is a format and reinstall. This will clean your infection, even if
it has infected the MBR.

Your trojan probably arrived in your system via an open port, and the
regfile.exe is using an integral SMTP server to send data via an open port.
A port scan will confirm this. You should be using a firewall (not the
n=one that came with windows). ZoneAlarm is free and protects against
unauthorized inbound and outbound traffic.

You should be using and regularly updating an Antiviral Program, such as
Norton AV.
It is critical to update your AV software daily, and this will help protect
you against new viruses as they are discovered.

You need to undertake a review of your computer security practices, and
implement
protect procedures as above. You may want to notify your friends that your
machine was recently infected and to have them check their machines, as many
malware programs replicate themselves trough the address book of any machine
they infect.

Bobby


Bobby

"John" > wrote in message
...
> My computer has slowed to a crawl - it is an XP machine
> with 256DDR memory with 80 gig drive. I have run
> performance measdures and everything is compressed and
> defragmented. Should be smoking!
>
> I recently noticed that cpu usage is always at 100% and,
> in particular, regfilter.exe is always in the high 90%
> usage. These numbers are based on just the desktop
> displayed with no active programs running.
>
> Thoughts???

[Soterro]

"John" > wrote in message >...
> I recently noticed that cpu usage is always at 100% and,
> in particular, regfilter.exe is always in the high 90%
> usage. These numbers are based on just the desktop
> displayed with no active programs running.

Probably you have some Norton Internet Security 2002 thing installed,
don't you?
This link might be the answer to your question. Unfortunately as you
will see it's not a solution, they just call it 'known problem' where
the only option is to uninstall it.

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nip.nsf/e584eff20b611f7988256a9b007e63c1/c8a882cc5ac3619f88256b110069c52e?OpenDocument

Sorry,
S