Large amounts of unaccounted data continuously sent and received while connected

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d_reinecke

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Dear all,

Whenever I am connected, and I open the "connection" screen via the icon in the taskbar, I see large amounts of unaccounted data continuously sent and received.

This never stops, even when I don't have any e-mail or web clients running.

What also surprised me, is that the bytes sent is comparitively high. Sometimes, especially if I am not surfing, it will even be greater than the bytes received.

I am running Windows XP professional with Service Pack 1 installed. The connection to Vodacom 3G I use is the "3G only" connection.

My machine is a desktop, running a PCMCIA adapter card for using the DataCard. It's a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz with 1 GB of memory.

Apart from it making me extremely nervous, it also chews up my 512 MB cap very quickly - and it makes my browsing much slower than what it should be.

Things I have done or considered so far:

- Close my e-mail client > No impact
- Close my web client > No impact
- Running Microsoft Anti-Spyware > Nothing found
- Running Windows Personal Firewall
- Running McAfee VirusScan > Occasionally prevents a buffer overflow attack, but no virusses found
- Disabled Windows Automatic Updates > No impact.

Is there anything else you can recommend? Perhaps there is a way of seeing where this traffic is coming from or going to?

I am considering installing Service Pack 2 - to see if that might make a difference.

You required any logs or settings in order to assist me, please le me know and I will see if I can find them on my machine.

Thanking you in advance,

Dave Reinecke
[email protected]
 
Dear all,

Whenever I am connected, and I open the "connection" screen via the icon in the taskbar, I see large amounts of unaccounted data continuously sent and received.

This never stops, even when I don't have any e-mail or web clients running.

What also surprised me, is that the bytes sent is comparitively high. Sometimes, especially if I am not surfing, it will even be greater than the bytes received.

I am running Windows XP professional with Service Pack 1 installed. The connection to Vodacom 3G I use is the "3G only" connection.

My machine is a desktop, running a PCMCIA adapter card for using the DataCard. It's a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz with 1 GB of memory.

Apart from it making me extremely nervous, it also chews up my 512 MB cap very quickly - and it makes my browsing much slower than what it should be.

Things I have done or considered so far:

- Close my e-mail client > No impact
- Close my web client > No impact
- Running Microsoft Anti-Spyware > Nothing found
- Running Windows Personal Firewall
- Running McAfee VirusScan > Occasionally prevents a buffer overflow attack, but no virusses found
- Disabled Windows Automatic Updates > No impact.

Is there anything else you can recommend? Perhaps there is a way of seeing where this traffic is coming from or going to?

I am considering installing Service Pack 2 - to see if that might make a difference.

You required any logs or settings in order to assist me, please le me know and I will see if I can find them on my machine.

Thanking you in advance,

Dave Reinecke
[email protected]
 
As gambit suggested, you need to trace what is causing the data activity. Common culprits include automatic updates and virusses/trojans.

Make sure you have an up to date virus program as well as a good firewall.

You can use Netlimiter (http://www.netlimiter.com/) to check which programs are transmitting data to where.

do this as soon as possible as these programs can seriously impact your data bill!
 
Since you apparently work for Standard bank you should be consulting your network administrator, not a web forum!

Worrying. Either this is a hoax or Standard bank does not have good policies or a clue when it comes to security on their PCs
 
Dear all,

Whenever I am connected, and I open the "connection" screen via the icon in the taskbar, I see large amounts of unaccounted data continuously sent and received.

This never stops, even when I don't have any e-mail or web clients running.

What also surprised me, is that the bytes sent is comparitively high. Sometimes, especially if I am not surfing, it will even be greater than the bytes received.

I am running Windows XP professional with Service Pack 1 installed. The connection to Vodacom 3G I use is the "3G only" connection.

My machine is a desktop, running a PCMCIA adapter card for using the DataCard. It's a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz with 1 GB of memory.

Apart from it making me extremely nervous, it also chews up my 512 MB cap very quickly - and it makes my browsing much slower than what it should be.

Things I have done or considered so far:

- Close my e-mail client > No impact
- Close my web client > No impact
- Running Microsoft Anti-Spyware > Nothing found
- Running Windows Personal Firewall
- Running McAfee VirusScan > Occasionally prevents a buffer overflow attack, but no virusses found
- Disabled Windows Automatic Updates > No impact.

Is there anything else you can recommend? Perhaps there is a way of seeing where this traffic is coming from or going to?

I am considering installing Service Pack 2 - to see if that might make a difference.

You required any logs or settings in order to assist me, please le me know and I will see if I can find them on my machine.

Thanking you in advance,

Dave Reinecke
[email protected]
 
It is possible that you are infected with a bot trojan and your antivirus doesn't pick it up.
 
Dear asmith,

You are correct in assuming that I work for Standard Bank. I promise you that my post on this forum was in no way intended to be a hoax. If I have caused you an offense, please accept my apology as that was not my intention.

The problem I was seeking help for, is for my personal computer at home. It uses a Vodacom 3G connection. As such, I did not think it reasonable to contact the network administrators here at the office.

I can assure you that Standard bank has very strict policies when it comes to security on their PCs.

I hope that clears matters up.

Thank you and kind regards,

Dave Reinecke
[email protected]
 
Last edited:
Hi Dave

I'm using Zone Alarm as a firewall, AVG for Virus protection and both Spybot and ADAware for trojans etc. DU meter then serves as a means to manage my data bundle during the month.

I have found that Skype and also eDonkey can waste bandwidth in the background when left idle.

You don't mention using the company VPN. I have found when I use my company's VPN there is a constant data flow in both directions which does add up when spending extended periods attached to the VPN.

With Zone Alarm or Net limiter you can manage the programs that connect to the internet by allowing or denying access.

Hope this help...
 
Additional information and appreciation

Dear all,

Thank you so much for the many replies. I will definitely try out your suggestions and I feel much more confident now that I will be able to track down and solve the problem.

I appreciate all your replies - and am overwhelmed at getting such valuable responses so quickly.

Further to some of your comments:

- I am not currently using Skype.
- I am not currently connecting to our company network using a VPN.

Another side question, do you reccomend using the 3rd party firewalls you mentioned instead of the Personal Firewall that comes with Windows XP Professional?

Thanks and regards,

Dave Reinecke
[email protected]
 
when you are online, closes all browser windows and ANY programs that may be connecting to the net.

wait 5 minutes. Check to make sure the phantom is still sending data back and forth

now, clikc on start/run and type in cmd
a little dos screen will pop up. in the screen, type in "netstat" (without the quotes) and it will list all your active ip connections...you should be abel to see with which ip's your pc is communicating. Hopefully, that will give you a clue as to what is going on.
 
use personal firewall to block unwanted traffic.
actually it's easier to block all traffic and make exceptions to some applications you need to use such as IE, MSN Messenger etc..
 
Why are there three separate threads on the same topic in different forums? Moderator, please move/collapse these threads into one thread. Thanks.
 
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