Hello everyone, I have a strange problem with my Windows 2003 server that has me stumped. The CPU begins to max out and several command line windows rapidly open and close. The command line windows reference cacls.exe but the screens close so fast I am unable to read the full message. In task manager there are several processes of cacls.exe starting and stopping. At this point the CPU is maxed out making the server nun-functional. This server functions as an FTP site for customers to upload files. The system log contains many entries of "Application popup: cacls.exe - Application Error : The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000142). Click on OK to terminate the application. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/even... which is somewhat ambiguous. I downloaded the Microsoft utility "Autoruns" but found nothing that would spawn the cacls.exe Any ideas on what would cause this??? Thanks

You might get some ideas here? http://articles.techrepublic.com.co...

First thing I'd suggest is locating the cacls.exe and RENAMING it. Then I'd suggest you use RegMon and FileMon to inspect the system and figure out what exactly is spawning those. Cacls changes permissions on files and if this is an FTP server, I suspect you've been hacked and someone is trying to modify permissions on your system so that they can do anything they want.