domain names in registry

[Gracie]

hello all, not at my perky best today, so thought I would take my mind off my unperkiness by asking you a Q.


I had some reason to go into the registry t'other day ( I have been receiving almost daily doses of a particular 'pay-pal' spoof e-mail, which if you open the attachment and answer the questions about your financial details, puts a virus on your hard drive so that it can post out all the juicy details you have divulged to a designated e-mail address. I don't open it of course, and I delete them when they come in (Norton can't fix them), but I like to do a check now and then, and run the fix, just in case....)
Anyway, there I was, poking around in the registry, and I came across

HKCU/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/InternetSettings/ZoneMap/Domains.
When I clicked on that, I was appalled to see a huge number of sites listed, many of which were clearly porn of some sort or another.

Why are they there is my first question - I don't go to these sites, and no-one else uses this computer, which I built, so its not legacy. Has something like Lop.com put them all on? - I had a brush with that some time back, but assumed I had dealt with it. Or are these here as a list for spyware and adware software to reference? I dunno. What I would like to know is  - can I delete the key and will the registry then renew the key when it wants to put the name of legitimately acquired site names in the list??

cheers  dog-eared Gracie:)

[scuzzy]

Good question, although I don't know the answer. As you mentioned, it could be a database-type reference for a legitimate program.

You may want to do a full scan of your hard drive with an antivirus program, as well as an anti-spyware program. Or, you could try backing up your registry, then deleting the key.

[Gracie]

have done the former, ad nauseam as I have a number of pest-control programs on the computer and give them all an airing every now and then. I will do the latter and see what happens

cheers Scuzz

Gracie:)

well done that - exported, deleted key. I checked with all the other HotKeys as well, and all their domain keys were empty. The Key hasn't been renewed in HKCU, but everything seems to be working just fine, so I  will rest with that - it must have been Lop.com  yuk.

Another problem put to bed by the Poasters Team :)

I am going to bed now to nurse the gaping hole where my toof used to be.

night-night Gracie:)