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researchz... researchz...
 
M$6 June 16, 2009 03:31 PM

On my Macbook pro, I sometimes see this little thing vanish in and out of the dock - but today it appeared to splash for a tiny bit longer..

...and it looked like an application called "Performance Monitor" which does not in fact exist on the system anywhere - not in recent apps, not in apps, not in utilities, not in a spotlight search and so on...now thinking it's some kind of clever spyware or logger program but need to know what to look for specifically and see detailed assistance in determining if this is a) some kind of random 'other' app behavior, or if in fact the 'occasional screen flickers' (and this random dock item that pops and vanishes within a second or so) is some kind of unique logging/spy app

thank you in advance for any or all insights...
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andreaxxje... andreaxxje...
 
 June 16, 2009 03:46 PM
Does it look like this by any chance?

Activity Monitor is in the system and it shows you where most of your memory is being used and it monitors network usage.

I'm sorry if this doesn't help you but I couldn't find anything about a "Performance Monitor" for a Mac.


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onek onek
 
June 16, 2009 03:41 PM
OS/X has a "performance monitor" of sorts, it's called activity monitor, but it doesn't make sense for it to flicker and then disappear like that...

My money would be on a remote administrator tool. Performance Monitor is the name of an app that does network management. You should consider getting a firewall protection for your mac, imo.

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researchzi... researchzi...
 
June 20, 2009 02:49 PM
thank onek - was out of pocket for a few days, which mahalo doesn't seem to like! is there a way to find this app or id the port for connection? i was thinking of littlesnitch to monitor outgoing, but not sure how to pinpoint it all...figured if something is doing any form of capture, then there'd be a large invisible file store of some kind as well...

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onek onek
 
June 20, 2009 03:44 PM
This kind of software can capture more than one port, as long as they are open they are vulnerabilities. A good firewall is the best way to block suspect traffic and trust only applications you know are installed by you.

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spiked spiked
 
June 16, 2009 03:50 PM
Does this happen at random times or does there appear to be a pattern to when this application pops up in your doc (e.g. following log in, or when application 'x' is also running).

If it is taking place when you first log in check your start up items folder (Macintosh HD > System > Library > StartupItems). This folder is empty normally unless you have an application installed that boots when you log in. (If you want to be 100% sure nothing is in there you can turn on invisible files using a program like Onyx).

You could also try running a program like ProtectMac AntiVirus to check for viruses or malware.
Source(s):
Onyx - http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/onyx.html

ProtectMac - http://www.protectmac.com/

Years of experience using a Mac


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