Mystery Downloads

[Twinks]

My PC has been downloading something lately and I have no idea what it is. No programs are running and it's still downloading away. I've run the latest Norton and nothing. Also run Adaware and also nothing.

Is there any way I can find out what it's doing and try and stop it? I'm assuming its a virus of some kind.
Can you get any software that tracks what you download and where from?

[Desmo]

Probably owned on a botnet.
How do you know it's downloading?

[Ferris]

That's what I want to know...

[02keilj]

maybe your cat is downloading thousands of child pron images...?

on a more serious note, are you sure all auto updates are turned off?
As CS4 said, how do you know that its downloading something?
also how much is being downloaded and when is it downloading?
is it at night, during the day or all the time?
are we talking a 10's of MB or hundreds?

[merctom]

run wireshark and see where its coming from.

^^ thats a valid comment too - do you have something like windows update set to auto download

[carlos]

Is it definitely your computer downloading? Do you have unsecured wireless?

[Twinks]

I can see it downloading cause the wirless broadband I use tells you that its downloading and at what speed. It's Dodo wireless if that makes any difference (apart from being a shit product).
All automatic updates are off.
I normally disconnect it but its been up to about 30meg before.
I'll check out wireshark, that sounds like what i'm after.

And it happens whenever I connect to the net.

[drifter]

normally its microsoft doing updates, but if you have that turned off, you might very well have other programs looking for updates as well.

[Roger Explosion]

Are you sure it's not your anti virus softwear updating? I use Kapersky, and that updates every couple of hours. Next time you see it start to update, click on your Norton icon and it will tell you if that is the source.

[Twinks]

I'm not 100% sure that something is not updating I guess, but I can't find anything. Thats why I was wondering if there is any way of finding out what is downloading?

[Dirty Sandchairs]

you have a password on your wireless?

[merctom]

Have a look at the connection list on your router, make sure that it is your system that is downloading

[darkfibre]

I think maybe we are talking wireless broadband, not wireless networking

[merctom]

Wow i totally missed that!

Actually twinks just thought of something really basic for you to have a quick look at, if you run vista that is.

Open the task manager, go to the performance.
Down the bottom is a button called resource monitor, hit the network tab and it'll tell you what process is sending data, the process, PID, the address data is going to and how much. (and yes there is meant to be multiple copies of programs in there)

[jmoore]

run a nice little program called hijack this , will show you all the programs that are running