Beware glb5.tmp SPYWARE in Zone Alarm 7 upgrade.

MattinSTL

MattinSTL

Sound Modulator
Hey all I know is I got tired of Zone Alarm constantly telling me to upgrade... so I did and INSTANTLY my computer turns to sh*t... I saw the glb* text boxes while it was supposed to be upgrading... and it nearly killed my machine. I've been jacking around with it ever since... and that was about 4+ hours ago.

FYI... take it for what it's worth. I NEVER had a problem with Zone Alarm before... always loved it... but even after deleting ALL zone alarm program threads I still got ZL dialog boxes popping up when my computer would freeze.

Whatever... maybe it was something else... but I don't think so. Just a warning...
 
hmm. where'd you download it from? sounds more like a bad site attached it to the file than it being shipped with malware....
 
Been there, done that...Got the T-shirt. Zone alarm 7 is a mess on my system so much so I went back to 5 and don't want to hear from ZA anymore. Yes it used to be stellar but now it's out of control. On boot I couldn't get online for up to 2 minutes and some programs won't come online for about the same time. The spyware detector wrongly determined some of my files and tossed them. Not a program I want on my system.
 
Thanks for concurring Mino... yeah, while I felt ready for some system upgrades (system is sluggish)... ZA 7 was NOT what the doctor ordered... it turned my computer's bad cold into full blown cancer.

I tried my best to get it all out of the system, but yeah... it is a disaster... the "teatimer" function somehow stops a system status thingy... and the computer freezes on a "system settings protector can't function" type of thing.

Not good... I just wanted to warn my fellow brethren.

Hey Andy... I did the download/upgrade automatically through ZA when it prompted me to, for about the thousandth time! I wish I'd continued to ignore that...

"remind me in 30 days"... over and over... until today... now 2 video projects are in jeopardy. I'm typing from my macbook in case you were wondering... but my PC has about 1.5tb of footage running through Vegas.
 
Geez Matt, that sucks. I really hope you get your stuff squared away and don't lose anything.

I can't imagine why people write that kind of crap code just to mess up someone's computer. It takes a very special kind of cowardly ass to do that. I had that happen to me and had to wipe the drive. I have far and again enough storage across my home network to save what I had to erase (still working in SD, and thank Ghu for that in this instance) but it was still a tedious waste of a perfectly good afternoon and evening reinstalling software and getting everything back to where it was.

Once you are back up and running, I have a suggestion:

Ghost your system. Had I, I wouldn't have spent more than an hour and would have been back to normal. Give it some comsideration. Seriously.
 
Here's some advice - keep your work computer off the internet. Having it accessible by third parties like that just isn't a good idea. You have to worry about everything - viruses, other things slowing you down, open for hacking (through, say, Instant Messenger or other program).

I have a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) that's only on my local LAN. I can't even get to the internet from it. If I have to scan a file for a virus, I'll do it from my laptop. The only reason this machine is on the LAN is so that I can get files from my other computer without having to use a USB stick. I tried that and it was a major pain in the rear, so I decided to keep it local LAN access only.

Also, only keep programs you absolutely need for your work on that machine. If you're doing video, ONLY have Vegas (or Avid, or PP, or whatever) and some sort of audio editing app. As I strictly do music on mine, I only have Sonar plus the applications that came with the various piece of hardware that I have (like my Fireface 800 audio interface or MOTU MIDI stuff). If I decide to buy Nuendo, then I'll have Sonar + Nuendo.

It really makes things a lot faster too, since you don't need ANY anti-virus software on your computer. :)
 
Quick question... I used Norton Ghost in the past and tried to regenerate my system, and I had to reinstall software and re-register, etc. Does it work differently now? Is it just the "ancillary" files that you're ghosting?

What's the most logical way to break this process down. Let's say I get Norton Ghost (again) and ghost the drive to an external drive... then my machine dies... now what? Format or replace the C: drive... and then...? Gimme' a quick run through it... is it simply a matter of installing the ghost software onto the new C: drive and then telling it where the ghost is? I'm all about this now... the last time I messed with any of this was probably over 4 years ago... but I'm getting the point once again.
 
Thanks for the info Matt. Sorry to hear about the mess! I use ZoneAlarm also and will definitely NOT upgrade. So what does everyone recommend as a good substitute?
 
I loved ZA prior to the upgrade... it was golden. For the record I'm not ruling out the possibility that there's a bug hacked into an otherwise fine program... previous to this experience I had only good things to say about them. If you can use the old ZA and always click "remind me in 30 days" when it prompts for the upgrade... well you'll probably be fine.
 
Sounds like usual malware, you gonna have have to a manual,

*sigh* I've just done a manual for my mates laptop.


Matt download Hijackthis, do a scan with log (if your on vista make sure you right click and select "run as administator")

PM me the logs, I'll have a looke and hopefully tell ya what to kill off, then go into safe mode and kill of the folders associated with it, reboot, clean as a newborn.
 
Leaving the malware issue asside, ZA7 still has issues at boot up and will not let your system operate normally until it's finished whatever it is it does in the background. If you don't mind your system being hijacked for the extra 3-4 minutes then go with ZA 7. If your system's on 24/7 you won't see any problems after the initial delay. But watch out for the spy ware sweeper, it's prone to mistakes!
 
Tom Marshall said:
Here's some advice - keep your work computer off the internet. Having it accessible by third parties like that just isn't a good idea. You have to worry about everything - viruses, other things slowing you down, open for hacking (through, say, Instant Messenger or other program).
Click to expand...

MattinSTL said:
Quick question... I used Norton Ghost in the past and tried to regenerate my system, and I had to reinstall software and re-register, etc. Does it work differently now? Is it just the "ancillary" files that you're ghosting?

What's the most logical way to break this process down. Let's say I get Norton Ghost (again) and ghost the drive to an external drive... then my machine dies... now what? Format or replace the C: drive... and then...? Gimme' a quick run through it... is it simply a matter of installing the ghost software onto the new C: drive and then telling it where the ghost is? I'm all about this now... the last time I messed with any of this was probably over 4 years ago... but I'm getting the point once again.
Click to expand...

Yep, exactly what I do. In the beginning I did a fresh intsall of the OS (XP) and all my programs on my main drive. I copied that drive and store it on a external drive that I have locked away. All my other files, wheter it's work, music, doc's, whatever, is ALWAYS saved out to my second internal hard drive. About once a month I recopy my program drive over to keep everything running smooth or if I update/upgrade anything.

Oh, and my "work" computer is NEVER jacked into the web. No anti-virus, no nothing. Again, keeps it running lean and mean.
 
Thirding the advice to keep your critical work computer off the net - that's the only thing that keeps me sane when I'm running windows. Unfortunately, sometimes you need things like updates/authorizations/authentications/registrations etc., and you have to get online, but oh well.

OT Definitely not to start another PC/Mac thread, but ultimately that's why I spend 95% of my time on the mac... it's not the "ease of use" or "mac mystique" or whatever other nonsense... it's the fact that on the PC I have to spend time constantly running/updating the various antimalware/antiadware/anitvirus programs in order to keep safe - of course, in the end thanks to ever present vigilance I never had a virus, but at what cost. FWIW, I'm not a mac fanboi or windows hater, in fact, there are many, many, many programs I wish the mac had, and in many ways I prefer the XP way of doing things (no experience with Vista), but running OS X just saves me time and irritation. YMMV.
 
Realizing I'm late on this post, here's a few thoughts:

1. Ditto here keeping video production off the net. Well, it is connected to the net to allow downloads and updates to critical APPLICATION software but that's it. No pokey Webroot Spysweeper, no firewall programs (Zone Alarm). However, I do have an efficient anti-virus program - just because...

2. Like many having been burned by the 2005 version of Norton/Symantec's suite that included a firewall resource hog, I abandoned their software and will probably never turn back. I've found that NOD-32 is the fastest anti-software program with the smallest footprint and is the least intrusive product in its class. True, it's a bit behind Kapersky's #1 position in its virus definition table, but its speed, small footprint, and elegant design more than compensate for the theoretical difference.

3. For most, I wouldn't recommend upgrading Zone Alarm. When you get the nagging pop-up, select defer the reminder for 60 days. Seeing this popup once every two months seems reasonable. Since the software was promoted as FREE software, I don't think users should necessarily feel obligated to purchase Zone Alarm - setting the nag reminder to 60 days seems a reasonable reminder.

Warm Regards,

Michael
 
Hey Matt, I had the same problem. I've been using Zone Alarm Pro for years, and with the new upgrade it all turned to poo.

I switched to COMODO and things are better. It's a slight learning curve as, from the beginning, ZA always worked intuitively for me, but they have a good support forum over at Comodo and you get help answers really quick. It's not crazy unintuitive, it just doesnt work exactly like ZA. It does all the same stuff, the controls are just different.

Check it out.

http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/
 
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