What is winkblr.exe ????? (1 Viewer)

[Chris White]

My pc started having problems playing dvds. After installing WinTop, I discovered the problem appears to be a program called winkblr.exe. It's a major resource hog -- using up to 90% of available CPU power.

A search of the MS knowledge base didn't help identify the file and, according to msinfo, winkblr.exe is not a Microsoft file.

I am unable to "kill" this program. First, it doesn't appear among the active tasks in the task monitor, so I can't stop it that way. Second, I used msconfig in an attempt to prevent it from starting, but it started anyway! Third, I tried to delete or rename the file, but windows won't allow that. Fourth, I found its run command in the registry and attempted to delete it, but windows wouldn't allow that.

1) Can anyone tell me what this program is?

2) How do I stop this program from loading?

 

[Chris White]

Problem solved. It turns out this file is associated with the worm_klez virus. I have a site license for F-Prot so I'll install that tonight and hopefully that will fix the problem.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Chris,

I was about to post that you have a virus called Klez, but you figured it out.

-Vince

 

[Kevin P]

If you have Klez, you can download a removal tool here
Also make sure to do a full scan of your system because Klez drops a virus called ElKern on your system as well and this virus can do nasty stuff like delete files.
Vince, how did you make the association between the file "winkblr.exe" and Klez? I tried searches on Yahoo, Google and Symantec, and didn't find any info that way. I figured I knew it all when it came to virus identification, I guess I was wrong this time!
KJP

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Oddly, ran into it just the other day on a computer system in the office where a friend works. I really usually know nothing about current viruses and worms- but I had just seen this the other day.

-Vince