Mysterious ~ (tilde) file on Desktop?!

[Banana]

I just noticed a file on my Desktop called "~" There is no extension, so I looked at it with Notepad. It seems to contain email addresses. Is this symptomatic of a virus 😕? Norton AV doesn't seem to care about it.

Please enlighten the ignorant!

 

[filmmaker]

Oh boy...

 

[conjur]

I get that sometimes if I open a Word doc from the desktop.

Delete it.

heck.

 

[filmmaker]

Originally posted by: conjur
I get that sometimes if I open a Word doc from the desktop.

Delete it.

heck.

You get a file containing email addresses if you open a Word file from the desktop?

Weird.

 

[conjur]

No...a file with a ~ for the name. 😛

Sorry for the ambiguous post.

 

[minendo]

Originally posted by: 1YellowPeril
I just noticed a file on my Desktop called "~" There is no extension, so I looked at it with Notepad. It seems to contain email addresses. Is this symptomatic of a virus 😕? Norton AV doesn't seem to care about it.

Please enlighten the ignorant!

Did you recently get an email from admin@yourdomain.com about your account expiring?

 

[Scarpozzi]

Sounds kinda fishy. If there's no file extension, it shouldn't be much of a threat if you move the file to another location. The real question is whether or not a new file will show up in its place if you remove it.

 

[filmmaker]

Originally posted by: Scarpozzi
Sounds kinda fishy. If there's no file extension, it shouldn't be much of a threat if you move the file to another location. The real question is whether or not a new file will show up in its place if you remove it.

Exactly. If so, then there is something else on your computer generating the file for exectution.

 

[beer]

Is the file hidden by default and do you have Windows to show hidden files? The MS Word files are hidden by default, so unless you have the option turned on, you shouldn't be seeing it.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: filmmaker
Oh boy...

I second that! 😕

 

[Bryophyte]

We got that file more than once, turned out we had the blaster worm. Have you disinfected thoroughly today? Maybe you should.

 

[Jingoh]

I got the tilde thing on my desktop a few times last month. Opened it up in notepad and
it looked like it was bits and pieces of my Outlook Express address book. I got paranoid
and did a virus scan (mcAfee) and nothing showed up. I just deleted the file, it came back
a few times and then never showed up again. OE did say that it didn't shut down correctly,
once... but I haven't seen anything bad since. I'm still curious about it too, but nothing seems
to be showing up as infected.

Side note: When I hit the Reply button to write to this thread, I had a Microsoft Frontpage 2000
installation window popup and start installing something... SPONTANEOUSLY! I own Frontpage
2000, but never use it and haven't tried to install anything from it recently. I hit the cancel button
and it started backtracking itself then I get a window that says, "The file Microsoft Frontpage 2000"
is not a valid installation package for the product Microsoft Frontpage 2000. Try to find the installation
package "DATA1.MSI" in a folder from which you can install Microsoft Frontpage 2000.

What the heck is this?? Now I'm really paranoid! Time to scan, maybe with a different Virus scanner! Ugh

 

[Encryptic]

Originally posted by: 1YellowPeril
I just noticed a file on my Desktop called "~" There is no extension, so I looked at it with Notepad. It seems to contain email addresses. Is this symptomatic of a virus 😕? Norton AV doesn't seem to care about it.

Please enlighten the ignorant!

OMFG! It's a gay file because it uses a tilde in the file name!

 

[Banana]

The ~ file has not returned after I deleted it. IIRC, it appeared around the time that Norton AV did an automatic Live Update. I wonder if that has to do with it.

Also, I checked for blaster infection and my PC is clean.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

MS Word uses the ~ as the leading character for backup files ... if you opened a .doc file from the internet and then got the Frontpage/2003 install screen, it may have left that as remnants.

- M4H