Bandwidth draining - advice pse!

[Moss]

My bandwidth usage has suddenly jumped (from an average of no more than 50 Mb a day to half a gig or more) without explanation. I don't have a wireless router and WebAfrica assures me that its coming over my DSL line, so it doesn't seem to be a hacking problem. Have installed a traffic controller but it doesn't pick up the spikes for some reason. McAfee (security for small businesses) has picked up a "generic downloader" and a couple of other viruses recently that were cleaned or deleted (couldn't clean one though), yet the problem persists. Subsequent scans with updated McAfee don't pick up anything. Is it possible that this is being caused by malware of some sort? What else could be the problem? Are there other antivirus packages that might be more effective?

 

[TheThinker]

Could you post logs from say a web africa dsl report? If you upload a lot then it is some kind of malware sending viagra spam mails or something.

 

[Mephisto_Helix]

first get rid of McAfee ...... get Avast or Avira, get Spybot S&D and do another scan and see what gets picked up.

 

[HavocXphere]

Is it possible that this is being caused by malware of some sort?

That is likely to be your problem yes.

I favour Comodo firewall when hunting for missing bandwidth because you can see exactly whats going on under active connections. Be sure to disable the Defence+ component though...gives way to many pop-up questions.

Make sure DSL secure is enabled on the dsl line & disable the adobe reader updates.

 

[Moss]

Thanks for your replies:
TheThinker - It is uploading a hell of a lot (about a third of the daily usage) which is not my usual pattern
Mephisto - Will give them a go, thanks
Havoc - Used to use Comodo but got annoyed by all those pop-ups. Maybe I'll go back to it. How do I enable DSL secure?

 

[gregmcc]

try doing a scan with spybot - it should pick up most things.

 

[macPhallus]

If you have not fixed the problem yet then ComboFix is VERY handy...
http://download.bleepingcomputer.com/sUBs/ComboFix.exe


.

 

[HavocXphere]

Havoc - Used to use Comodo but got annoyed by all those pop-ups.

Switching off Defence+ kills 80% of the popups. The first week you'll get a lot though until all the regular apps have rules set up for them. After that one can go on for months with almost zilch new popups.

Maybe I'll go back to it. How do I enable DSL secure?

dsl.webafrica.co.za/usage.html
under the authentication tab.

 

[PsyWulf]

Thanks for your replies:
TheThinker - It is uploading a hell of a lot (about a third of the daily usage) which is not my usual pattern

I've seen Bot Trojans cause this,even spiking to 80% of uploads