Can someone please let me know if this is real?

[yy4me]

The following e-mail came to me today
"Welcome to ZoneAlarm. Thank you for downloading and installing Zone Alarm, the award winning firewall from Zone Labs." I did not install Zone alarm and have not been to their web site. I checked in Control Panel, Add & Remove Programs, there is no Zone Alarm, Zone labs or anything like that listed.
A little farther down on the e-mail is the statement, "Soon after you install Zone Alarm, you may see Program Firewall Alerts" with a diagram and instructions. There is no customer service number to call and I do not want to click on any of their little helpful hints, support center or other options for fear that that will trigger something. So, do I have this or not? As far as I know, I have just the Microsoft firewall. I am a computer novice and am very intimidated by this type of thing because I never know how to get out of it. Suggestions please?

[bemildred]

1. Could you post the entire email?

Based on what you said, it could be that someone else used your email to download ZoneAlarm.
But who can say for sure.
My initial impression is that its not "real".

[hvn_nbr_2]

2. Sounds fishy to me.

The other suggestion that someone simply used your email address to get it is a possibility. But it could also be a phishing attempt, designed to fool you.

I have Zone Alarm on my work computer and I've never seen anything called a "Program Firewall Alert." I've been getting a lot of alerts recently because someone somewhere seems to be intently trying to access my computer. But looking in the ZA help, I don't find anything called by that name. They have lots and lots of kinds of alerts, so it's rather suspicious that the email would single out one of them. Also, I've never seen an alert with any kind of diagram.

For curiosity, you might mouse over links and see what URL is linked to. But don't click them. Also, don't believe that if the the URL starts with what looks like a zonelabs address, that it necessarily is. They can construct a long URL that looks like that but really re-directs the link to somewhere else.

I think you were smart not to do anything with that email.

Oh, one other conceivable possibility: Does anyone else use your computer? If so, ask them if they got it. (BTW, my Zone Alarm is in a folder under "Program Files" called "Zone Labs." I don't remember for sure, but that's probably the default install directory.)

[RoyGBiv]

3. That sounds like Zone Alarm ...

The e-mail I get when I install it is at least similar to that. However, a lot of phishing schemes try to mimick something legitmate like this. As bemildred said, posting the entire e-mail would be helpful.

Pull up your task manager (CTL-ALT-DEL) and see if Zone Alarm is running. If you don't know what to look for, post the processes that are running here, or a screen shot, and we can look at it.

[yy4me]

4. Whats running---This was an interesting trip, never been

there before.
Here is the list; everything ends with exe:
IEXPLORE
hposts08
OPXPApp
hpoevm08
wdfmgr
svchost
omniServ
avgemc
avgupsvc
avgamsvr
alg
spoolsv
svchost local network
svchost Network service
svchost system
hpotdd01
here before. Everything listed ends with .exe


hpohmr08
svchost
lsass
services
winlogon
avgcc
csrss
HpqCmon
hkcmd
smss
hpsysdrv
explorer
taskmgr
System
System Idle Process

I really know nothing about any of this but nothing looks like Zone Alarm. What is all the Network stuff? I had tried once 2 years ago to network 2 computers and that got messed up. A tech was supposed to remove all that stuff. Does this indicate that it is still on my machine? Except for Internet access, we barely use this machine. All help is accepted. Thanks, yy4me

[I_Make_Mistakes]

5. I just checked and it looks like the only zone alarm process is

zlclient.exe. I have zone alarm (free version) and like it. There home page is zonelabs.com, I think, I have been up all night with a bleeding parrot (yes, to the ER). If you go to the web site you maybe able to find a contact list to determine if the message was indeed from them. Good Luck!

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. Not real

Click on nothing.