Boinc is running on my system without my knowledge

[KaareKanin]

Hi peeps, it have somewhat of a weird problem.

 

So i popped by work late in the evening only to discovered that my work station had its fans running at max. I opened task manager and saw no programs that used any noticeable amount of CPU time, so I clicked "show processes from all users", and lo and behold there were 8 tasks running at 12-13% each. They were running under the user "boinc_project". I asked the IT department about it, making the mistake thinking that they'd actually know anything about stuff like that. They didn't even know what BOINC was. Virus scan showed nothing, that was about all they knew how to do...

 

So I disabled everything in the msconfig file, so it shouldn't open, but it does. I can't find any uninstall option for the client in the windows installer-thingy or the program file directory either. I can just cancel the processes, no biggie, and it stops. But I'm not very comfortable with unknown stuff like that running on any computer I use, and It'll just start again. I looked a little bit into it, and it seemed to have some flags in the msconfig file and the client seens to be set up to run in ghost mode. 

 

What do you guys think? Is boinc running with good intentions in this case? How can this have gotten onto my system? How do I get rid of it? Simply delete the folder quick and dirty?

 

[Ren]

Someone in the office is using the office pc's to mine at night..?

[ohJey]

Someone sneaked onto your computer and set it up, you gotta investigate

[KaareKanin]

Someone in the office is using the office pc's to mine at night..?

Someone sneaked onto your computer and set it up, you gotta investigate

 

That's my thinking as well... I've tried probing the most likely suspects to see if they knew anything, but no result. I've only folded a bit, never used BOINC. Is there a way to fint the username that's used to log on to the client? 

 

Also, how would you guys stop it? Dirty delete the whole install folder? Maybe install it once for myself and hope that the resulting uninstaller will remove everything?

[tobben]

That's my thinking as well... I've tried probing the most likely suspects to see if they knew anything, but no result. I've only folded a bit, never used BOINC. Is there a way to fint the username that's used to log on to the client? 

 

Also, how would you guys stop it? Dirty delete the whole install folder? Maybe install it once for myself and hope that the resulting uninstaller will remove everything?

doesn't it show up in control panel as an installed program so you can just uninstall it? stupid question but i got to ask, and i must say if someone has been messing with your pc that person is awesome, thumbs up to him or her .

[Whaler_99]

Technically running programs like this on anyone else's computer other then your own without user permission is frowned upon buy BOINC and FAH communities and in many cases is illegal.

 

That being said... someone obviously knows what they are doing. Are you able to log onto other PC's at work and see if the folder is also there? If it is on yours, most likely then on others.

 

Quick and dirty, ya, delete the folder, then there shouldn't be an executable to run. If the "IT Department" doesn't know what it is, I would maybe take it higher up, let them know someone is loading and running unauthorized software on company hardware. 

[KaareKanin]

Technically running programs like this on anyone else's computer other then your own without user permission is frowned upon buy BOINC and FAH communities and in many cases is illegal.

 

That being said... someone obviously knows what they are doing. Are you able to log onto other PC's at work and see if the folder is also there? If it is on yours, most likely then on others.

 

Quick and dirty, ya, delete the folder, then there shouldn't be an executable to run. If the "IT Department" doesn't know what it is, I would maybe take it higher up, let them know someone is loading and running unauthorized software on company hardware.

  

Gonna try that then! Thanks!

doesn't it show up in control panel as an installed program so you can just uninstall it? stupid question but i got to ask, and i must say if someone has been messing with your pc that person is awesome, thumbs up to him or her .

Nope... No traces of the program anywhere normal people would look :-P and yes, really awesome ;-)

[Patramix]

by default all the boinc files, related to the acutal folding, are in a hiden by default folder (C:\ProgramData\BOINC), only the UI stuff is installed in the "C:\Program Files" directory

 

if you delete the C:\ProgramData\BOINC if the guy dint change the directory, it should all stop, this is where all the research files and exe are stored by default.

 

in any case you should be able to right click on the process in the task manager and open the files location from there.