[SpamCop-Geeks] Re: Strange Google error

[Anonymous]

"Tom Cumming" <me at privacy.net> wrote in message 
news:dlb53c$3av$1 at news.spamcop.net...
>I was doing a search on Google today, and instead of getting the results, 
>I got to a page with this message:
>
> "We're sorry...
> ... but we can't process your request right now. A computer virus or 
> spyware application is sending us automated requests, and it appears 
> that your computer or network has been infected.
> We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In 
> the meantime, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover 
> to make sure that your computer is free of viruses and other spurious 
> software.
> We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on 
> Google."
>
> It then gave a box where you have to type in the characters in a 
> picture, and then once I did that, it allowed me to my search results.
>
> I was using a regularly-updated Linux box, so I would think the 
> likelihood I am infected with anything is pretty remote, and the only 
> other computer on the network was turned off at the time.
>
> Should I be worried?


Yeah, I get that all the time... but then, I use Google a LOT, especially 
Google Groups... it takes a lot of searching to exhaustively dig out 
information on spammers.

If you're not hitting Google all that often, then you should check your 
computer for / with the following:

Adware : Lavasoft Ad-Aware

Spyware : Spybot Search & Destroy, A-Squared

Viruses : AVG antivirus or the AV program of your choice (as long as it 
isn't Norton, Symantec or McAfee... they've gone downhill in their 
accuracy and the programs tend to be bloat-ware).

Rootkits : SysInternals Rootkit Revealer

Another good way of catching nefarious programs making connections is to 
let your computer sit idle for a while without any programs making 
internet connections. Then open a command prompt and run 'netstat -abon' 
(without the quotes).

In Task Manager, go to the Processes tab, then click View >> Select 
Columns. Select the following columns:
PID, CPU Usage, Memory Usage, USER Objects, Handle Count, Thread Count

Resize each column and resize Task Manager so that you can see all the 
data in Task Manager, and cross-correlate the PID from the netstat with 
the programs running in Task Manager.

If you see any programs that are making external connections that aren't 
supposed to, then you can Google for that file name to see if it's 
malicious. If you see any programs taking an inordinate amount of CPU 
time, memory, memory handles, or threads, Google on those file names to 
see if they're malicious.

This assumes, of course, that you're running WinXP.