What Is This? (Computer Program Thing)

[Deleted]

Hi

So, I was sitting around on my computer, just got playing some CoD MW2 and was just in the middle of an instance in WoW when all of a sudden my computer pops up with a little message asking for permission. You know, the usual cant be verified, Windows Firewall is stopping this from working or something or other.

And it was:

netsession_win.exe*32

I have had this computer coming up for a year now and I have never seen nor heard of this. I was abit suspicious at click the block button. Once I was done with my instance I went and found it in the task manager and searched it on the net. The only real questioning of it I could find was on Yahoo Answers and it was stated it was a virus by one poster and another implies its not.

Is this a virus? Should I be concerned?

Regards

Anésthetic

[Edit] The date of creation also made me suspicious. The file name makes out to be something important to do with internet explorer yet it was apparently only created on the 29th of last month. I havent installed anything or downloaded anything for atleast 3 weeks or so.

[Edit2] There are two instances of this proccess running at the same time.

[OhpUldum]

http://www.akamai.com/html/misc/akam...rface_faq.html

http://stream-recorder.com/forum/aka...lbe-t7217.html

It's like pando media booster afaik.

Quote:
I've finally figured out what exactly this Akamai Netsession program is and where it came from. It was downloaded to my computer when I signed up for Netflix and watched a movie via their online video streaming. Netflix uses Akamai to quickly and smoothly stream videos with minimal buffering and almost no download time. It's not harmful, it doesn't seem to use a lot of resources (I could be wrong, but it doesn't on my computer), and is necessary for viewing Netflix, and other websites that stream videos online.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/24...interface-this

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...4111250AAohO7k

Sourceded 10 charizards

[Deleted]

Thanks Culadin.

Much appreciated Now I can rest easy knowing my computer wont go balls up!

[feigning]

To be honest, i uninstalled Pando when i installed LoL. Not only was it wreaking havoc with my bandwidth, i don't like the idea of something using up that much bandwidth without my knowledge. It didn't ask to be installed beforehand, and so i consider it unwanted.

Pando ruined my computer. I'm unsure why, but it was hogging an amount of resources that literally made me cringe. It caused my computer to freeze up for days until I realized it wasn't a virus doing it and uninstalled it...

[Deleted]

@Synthaxx - I agree, its unwanted and therefore faces deletion! Time to go find out how! And ye, it didnt ask to install.

@feigning - God, I really cant have that happen.... :S

[Deleted]

It is not the best place for arguing this, but it seems it is one of the first places in the world where this issue is mentioned. (according to Google)

Hi

So, I was sitting around on my computer, just got playing some CoD MW2 and was just in the middle of an instance in WoW when all of a sudden my computer pops up with a little message asking for permission. You know, the usual cant be verified, Windows Firewall is stopping this from working or something or other.

And it was: netsession_win.exe*32

Had the same here an hour ago.

[Edit] The date of creation also made me suspicious. The file name makes out to be something important to do with internet explorer yet it was apparently only created on the 29th of last month. I havent installed anything or downloaded anything for atleast 3 weeks or so.

[Edit2] There are two instances of this proccess running at the same time.

Mine was created on October 29 as well, and is running twice too.

Furthermore I noticed that in the Akamai directory (from where it is running) logs are filed in a log dir. In both "\program files\common files\..\akamai\" as "\user\..\AppData\akamai\" a log was kept since 10-29.
All logs are named "debug.log.date_time.sent" except for the last one (before I switched back to Kubuntu) which is named "debug.log.date_time.upload". The time of the last .set-log in my user-dir corresponds with the firewall alert and after 7 minutes this .upload-log came (because I turned off my computer?)

Anyway, It looks like it is a kind of virus.. (duqu?)

gr,
Sinterklaas

(Akamai seems to be installed on my computer on July 12, 2011)
[running MS Windows Vista32]

[Rukh]

It may be completely benign, but putting things on my computer I didn't ask to be put there is a huge no-no. I deleted all mentions of it, and if it comes back they're going to get a very pissed off phonecall. To uh, whatever number I can find. =.=*

[Deleted]

General rule, if I don't know what it is - I'm not giving it access.

Simples.

[Unkept]

I have this on my computer now, I have not installed anything on my computer today, in fact I unlocked my computer to see the Windows Security Alert. The install date on this is 03NOV2011. The last date I installed anything on my computer was 27OCT2011.

No one has been on my computer all day, I know this for fact. Yet I have 2 instances of this running on my computer as well. I was actually surprised to see my search for this file to be on mmo-champions.

I use Window's 7 and my computer is set to not install anything without my authorization. So I guess I need to do more research to find why and how this got installed on my computer today.

[aztr0]

Hmm. Weird you asked this today, since I haven't seen this issue until today also. Unlike you, I have seen this file on my task manager before I remember it never asked me to do anything until it asked me permission when I was raiding and my web browser was on Yahoo. No idea wtf it was aboue. I didn't grant it permission so whatever.