What does this sudden, unexplained user profile on Windows 7 mean?
November 25, 2014 1:42 PM Subscribe
An unexplained user profile called 'matt' showed up in C:\Users on my Windows 7 laptop today. What does this mean and should I be worried?
I've got a pretty old (3+ years) laptop running Windows 7 with my profile (main, administrative account) and a guest account for, well, guests. The guest account sometimes gets used by me to quickly check my e-mail or for visiting friends that want to browse the web. Once in a while I'll go into C:\Users and clear the desktop from my main account or transfer files (photos saved by friends, etc).
Today I noticed a new user profile titled 'matt'. There's nothing in this user's folder, unlike my profile and the Guest account. It says it was created on Sunday. It doesn't appear in my list of profiles accessed via the control panel (the ones that appear at startup) and I don't know anyone named Matt/Matthew. I've never taken my laptop to a shop for repairs. It's never even been out of my flat in something like two years. All of my security software is up to date.
What does this new user profile mean? How could it have been created? What can I do?
I've got a pretty old (3+ years) laptop running Windows 7 with my profile (main, administrative account) and a guest account for, well, guests. The guest account sometimes gets used by me to quickly check my e-mail or for visiting friends that want to browse the web. Once in a while I'll go into C:\Users and clear the desktop from my main account or transfer files (photos saved by friends, etc).
Today I noticed a new user profile titled 'matt'. There's nothing in this user's folder, unlike my profile and the Guest account. It says it was created on Sunday. It doesn't appear in my list of profiles accessed via the control panel (the ones that appear at startup) and I don't know anyone named Matt/Matthew. I've never taken my laptop to a shop for repairs. It's never even been out of my flat in something like two years. All of my security software is up to date.
What does this new user profile mean? How could it have been created? What can I do?
There are viruses that create extra users, so it might be useful to scan the machine for infections. Here you can see a typical virus creation kit that has an option to add Windows users:
http://vxheaven.org/vx.php?id=tt10
posted by hz37 at 1:55 PM on November 25, 2014
http://vxheaven.org/vx.php?id=tt10
posted by hz37 at 1:55 PM on November 25, 2014
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posted by AndrewStephens at 1:55 PM on November 25, 2014 [12 favorites]