Hi everyone, Browsing here and there on the Net, I arrived at this exciting web page: JS/Offensive! I wanted to tell you a bit more about it! You could read this page 3 different ways: - be impressed by this so nasty trojan! I thought a trojan was far less damaging!!! - consider all of the possible values attached to these HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\etc. Registry Keys (\Explorer, \System, \WinOldApp and others as well as the corresponding HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\etc.) --- imagine the power of these keys to display or not oodles of icons, menus and boxes and thus, personalize your System --- on the other hand, imagine what malware can do and now, you will be able to fix and get rid of some malware damage having a look at the keyw above! This is an old vulnerability of IE known from October 2000 -> 'Microsoft VM ActiveX Component' Vulnerability (MS00-075) Thanks for having read my lines! hope you found them interesting! Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

Gérard, Interesting to say the least. Certainly shows the importance of all the security software we lug around on our machines nowdays. Skip

Yet another good reason for getting updated while you still can (it's a long time since February)..... Derek

Hi Skip, Derek, hi everyone, Thank you for posting! Despite security updates, I think there are more and more questions about "anything lost" in menus, icons, etc. This JS/Offensive is an example but many malwares can corrupt the Registry! Derek, do you mean you didn't update your system since February? 2003? 2002? 2001? 2000? ;-) do you mean you can't access WindowsUpdate site? Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

Gérard No, I'm bang up to date - all updates on CD too from corp site etc. It was just a gentle reminder to anyone reading your post with a fading W9x machine, because that link was to a vulnerability dated Feb 03. Nice to see you around Derek

Hi guys, Good point Derek...exactly why I downloaded and burned the entire update catalogs for 98 and Me last month. And; the attackers are getting better at bringing a pc to its knees. This also makes the importance of backing up important data even more relevant to this discussion as the overwhelming corruption of registry and other windows files becomes the norm for malware.

ShipCox I've got to the point that I backup known good registries regularly (plus system.ini & win.ini), with batch files. I keep a note with each copy so that I know just what was installed/uninstalled at the time. That way I can go cleanly back to the last version, or earlier if really necessary. I prefer to manage these myself, rather than rely on MS facilities that save any old registry as long as it happens to boot up, without any indication of the installed state. Derek