Tech: Computer Virus?

Subject: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 02:29 PM

Sometimes when I use my computer, the cursor starts moving on it's
own and clicks on things. I'm serious.
Does anybody know what causes this to happen?
I run an AVG Virus scan often, and delete any viruses it picks up,
but this still happens to me once in a while.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: buddhuu
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 03:25 PM

Are you sure it's actually clicking? If it's an optical mouse (with a light instead of a little ball) then cleaning the lens bit may make a difference. I've known them to get pretty rogue when grubby.

Is it a desktop or a laptop machine? Also, is it an older PC? Does it use a PS2 type mouse or is it USB or wireless? You can sometimes get conflicts if there are two or more pointing devices on the system. You could have a look in your device manager to see if there is more than one mouse or mousepad shown.

There are programs that allow remote access to PCs. I use a couple myself to remotely control my office PC from home. Anyone sitting at the screen of my office PC while I am doing that would see the mouse pointer moving around as you describe.

If you do not knowingly have such a program installed, then I suppose it just could be illicit access by a hacker, but that doesn't usually advertise itself by visibly moving the cursor.

Are you running a firewall and malware precautions, and do you update your AVG database regularly (every few days at least)?

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: Newport Boy
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 04:20 PM

Don't know about clicking, but my optical mouse often moves the pointer on its own. When I notice it, I move it a touch and it behaves.

Phil

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: treewind
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 04:52 PM

I've seen it happen when the computer guesses incorrectly what type of mouse it is. Any mouse movement is turned into alarming and wild pointer activity, leaping all over the screen and clicking randomly on things.

Restarting with mouse plugged in usually fixed it, and I haven't seen it happen recently. I think it was only with the old style PS/2 mouse port, not USB.

Otherwise... the mouse could be broken.

My optical mouse occasionally shows small random movements as described by Phil too.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: buddhuu
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 06:01 PM

Yeh, that's why I asked if it was a PS2 mouse. The only really bad random stuff I recall was on a really old PC with a PS2. It may even have been an AT class machine it was so longs ago...

Just realised... next year it will be 30 years since I got my first computer. Strewth.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: Bernard
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 06:53 PM

Optical meeces can get pretty stroppy if the surface underneath is fussy - on my desk at work I have one of those calendar-scribble pad thingies, which gets mucky and scribbled upon quite quickly. The mouse cursor jumps all over the place when I'm trying to do something intricate, and I have to strip the top sheet off to expose a clean one...!

Even when I'm not using it, strange things have been known to happen!

I have very little of such trouble here at home, except when the optical mouse gets fluff up its bung 'ole... rather than being erratic, it simply ignores me!

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 16 Apr 10 - 03:02 PM

It's a PC-XP with a traditional mouse.
My scanner just discovered a Trojan Horse when I ran a scan yesterday.
I didn't pick that up before, so I guess that's probably it.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 07:22 AM

My AVG hasn't picked up any viruses for weeks - I'm very suspicious!

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: Amergin
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 07:28 AM

That could very well be it....could be that some one gained access to your computer. XP machines are notoriously easy to hack into, especially if you are connected to the net when reinstalling the O/S.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: Simon G
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 12:54 PM

@bhudduu, me to 30 years since my Spectrum ZX81 late next year. I've lost count of the computers in between.

@Jim Martin, I've never been one for picking up viruses and my computer seems to be the same, I've only ever found one virus and one trojan horse on my computer - Plenty on the one the kids used until a few years ago. Maybe refusing to use Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and MSN Messenger was a sound decision.

Simon

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: buddhuu
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 01:15 PM

"@bhudduu, me to 30 years since my Spectrum ZX81 late next year. I've lost count of the computers in between."

Snap! Exactly the same, mate. LOL.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: Bernard
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 03:34 PM

Hah! Me too, almost! My first was a ZX Spectrum, which I still have.

On the subject of AVG... I've had to uninstall it from three machines recently, including this one. Different problems each time, free edition each time, but it seems they may be losing their grip.

This machine: Outlook started to randomly report that it couldn't contact the server to download emails. At the same time, IE8 started to randomly stop connecting to websites, especially via links - Mudcat threads were hit and miss, and images often would not display - the little box with a cross instead.

I suspected a trojan or some such, but nothing turned up. I uninstalled AVG 9 (free edition) and the problems stopped immediately. I'm currently using Microsoft Security Essentials, which appears to be effective.

A colleagues home computer suddenly rebooted, and wouldn't reboot except into safe mode. It would blue screen just after the XP loading screen appeared, but the message disappeared too quickly to read what it was saying.

Again, was this a trojan? Nothing showed up, so on a hunch I uninstalled AVG... problem solved, so agian, MSE is now installed.

My daughter's PC had a really weird error message popping up, which I didn't actually get to see. As it was just after upgrading from AVG 8.5 to 9, I suggested she uninstalled AVG and used MSE - again, problem solved.

Each of the three machines is now behaving normally, with no hint of any malware activity. I hate to admit it, but MSE seems to be a rather good piece of software!

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: Rowan
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 07:47 PM

Sometimes when I use my computer, the cursor starts moving on it's own and clicks on things.

It seems the following story is not relevant to your case, mlb, but it might give a heads-up to others.

A colleague noticed this happening on his computer and it had the institution's network techo's hopping for a minute or two. It turned out he was using a wireless mouse and keyboard, as was another colleague in an adjacent office. One was on a Mac and the other a Dell using XPII and they were using quite different applications at the time. It turned out both were using wireless keyboards & mice and both were on the same frequency, which managed to penetrate a good 40cm (15") of reinforced concrete wall as well as several metres of airspace.   

A trap for the unwary.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer Virus?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 08:23 PM

And people wonder why an ex-techie/hacker like me declines most of those fancy gadgets for the simplest solution - wires cause fewer problems than wireless :-) - I refuse to use wireless mice, LANs, etc if one can plug in a wire somewhere.... :-) I've had lots of hassles fixed by KISS troubleshooting.

I once bought some Swann wireless security cameras. They had 2 switchable channels. I bought two packs of single camera & screen, one for each end of the house. Well.... each screen would only receive the camera physically nearest it, and ON BOTH CHANNELS at the same time, no matter what switch settings were used anywhere! :-0

Refund ! :-)

I now have wired cameras only... :-p

Once Burnt, Twice Shy.