PAND, located in C:\Windows\ApplicationData\csam.exe
I have suspicions that the “csam.exe” is associated with some spyware/malware, but I didn’t find it on a site that lists programs in the start-up menu (where I found this). Anyone know what it is, whether it’s helpful/needed, benign, or evil?
Benign…probably needed. It has to do with your modem.
CSAM.EXE Alarm Log Archive Manager
My bad. Not your modem. I hate when I read the wrong line.
Not much about it on the net. So I doubt it’s malware.
I’d be suspicious because it’s an exe file in a “data” location. What else is in that directory?
-lv
what do you mean that pand is located IN csam.exe ??
if csam.exe appears to be a directory with a file inside it, that could indeed be an indication that something is not right.
Do you play Counter Strike?
Can you provide the file size and date of csam.exe?
I go to Start, Run, type in “msconfig”, and click the Startup tab. It lists the startup programs with a name on the left and what I thought was a location (hence my saying “in”, but perhaps that was my misunderstanding) on the right. This one shows “PAND” in the left column and “C:\Windows\ApplicationData\csam.exe” across from it in the right column.
I’m afraid I don’t know enough to intelligently respond about whether this is a data location, or a directory with a file inside it, or file size and date. I hoped maybe someone would recognize it as definitely OK or definitely not OK, but perhaps it’s not that simple. I can try to follow instructions to help determine those things, or go to a different internet forum if that would be more appropriate.
Hi Gary T
I’m not quite sure what it is either. But if you’ve got suspicions, download and run Ad-aware. Make sure to download any updates first…then put a check beside all it finds, and let it rid you of everything listed.
Then, perhaps an online virus scan at housecall?
That means there is a program shortcut named PAND that runs a file named csam.exe.
Daizy has the right idea. Run Ad-aware and an antivirus. If it is bad, one of those programs will clean it up (and anything else it did). If you don’t normally run these programs, then it is likely they will find something - even if it is not csam.exe.
Sorry I couldn’t help more. It would have been nice to help you with a computer problem after all of the car problems you have helped others with.
A search on Google gives only three hits, which almost certainly means it’s a random filename and thus spyware.
Only one of those hits identifies it, and that indicates a product from Coastal Security Systems. I doubt you ever installed their software on your computer. The particular program was dated from 04/21/93, if the date of the program is anything else, that can rule out this.
As others have pointed out, it’s running from an odd location, another sign of spyware.
Run a spyware cleaner. If it’s still running that, kill the process and rename the file. Restart. It’s extremely unlikely that the program is doing any good, but if there’s a problem, you could boot to DOS and rename it back.
Thanks all for the suggestions and info (and for the kind words, CaveMike). I’ll try Ad-aware and the virus scan. I have run Spybot, but I’ve gathered that it’s more effective to use Ad-aware as well, so now’s a good time to do that. I appreciate the responses.
Here’s one thing that I do to get an idea about what a file is: Use Windows Exlplorer to navigate to that folder, right-click on the file, and click ‘Properties’. Click on the Version tab and see what it says. See what the description is, and try clicking on the different options under ‘Item name:’. Of course, I suppose that if it’s malware, then this information could be less than accurate, but it’s another thing to investigate.
~
You could try killing the process, then re-naming the file to “xxxx.xxx”, and re-booting. If it’s not running, and everything you typically run in Windows works alright, then it could have been spyware.
Also, you might consider giving Security Task Manager a look. It identifies all running processes and determines their capabilities, and ranks their riskiness. Additionally, it provides a wealth of information about each process, including where it was started from. Nice stuff. It’s helped me nail a few difficult beasties in the past.