The other day I noticed my USB memory stick flashing for several minutes, even though I was not actively using it to access files.

When I disconnected my internet connection, the flashing stopped. Am I paranoid, or could someone have hacked my computer? Or was it an internal process in my laptop?

I use standard Windows firewall/McAfee and am theoretically free of spyware - at least according to daily updated Avast and Malwarebytes

Grateful for any wise advice on this as the memory stick contains some bank details etc.

It has not happened again since.

Thanks in advance.

Could be just your AV program scanning the memory stick. Check your config settings.

You say it has not happened since - try adding/deleting data on your memory stick and monitor your AV program to see what happens.

Do you run Diskeeper or another defragmenter with Automatic Defragmentation?

Windows media player does some weird stuff in terms of scanning new media for audio/video and obtaining DRM information and things like album covers from the Internet. I've disabled most of these 'features', but maybe that explains why it happened only with an internet connection? Just a thought.

Edited January 24, 201115 yr by phaethon

Could be just your AV program scanning the memory stick. Check your config settings.

You say it has not happened since - try adding/deleting data on your memory stick and monitor your AV program to see what happens.

Thanks for suggestion. Actually a scheduled Avast scan was running (at 9% completed) at the time the stick was flashing continuously - but it was scanning drive C:

The scan is also not configured to check removable storage, only the HDD.

To test it, I reran the scan with new data in the stick, files opened, but no flashing occurred.

What troubled me was seeing the flashing stop immediately when I cut the internet connection. Might have been a coincidence, but strange nonetheless.

Do you run Diskeeper or another defragmenter with Automatic Defragmentation?

Thanks for this.

Nope - no scheduled automatic processes, except my daily scheduled virus scan which only scans the HDD.

Windows media player does some weird stuff in terms of scanning new media for audio/video and obtaining DRM information and things like album covers from the Internet. I've disabled most of these 'features', but maybe that explains why it happened only with an internet connection? Just a thought.

Thanks for this possibility. Have never used Windows media player on this machine and it was not configured eg for default player etc. I did configure it, and indeed the stick started flashing.

But it continued flashing when I cut the internet!

I just wonder if anybody has had data stolen from their machine when on line?

No idea if this can be a sign of being part of a botnet, but this is a good tool to check it: http://free.antivirus.com/rubotted/ and Kasperski has a series of free tools to scan for specific malware and viruses: http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses

No idea if this can be a sign of being part of a botnet, but this is a good tool to check it: http://free.antivirus.com/rubotted/ and Kasperski has a series of free tools to scan for specific malware and viruses: http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses

Have done checks but as far as I can see I have no botnet malware or other infection.

The same phenomenon happened again this morning -- and once again the flashing stopped when I cut the connection.

I'm using AIS Super 3G as ISP.

Will install another firewall and see if that stops it.

No idea if this can be a sign of being part of a botnet, but this is a good tool to check it: http://free.antivirus.com/rubotted/ and Kasperski has a series of free tools to scan for specific malware and viruses: http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses

Have done checks but as far as I can see I have no botnet malware or other infection.

The same phenomenon happened again this morning -- and once again the flashing stopped when I cut the connection.

I'm using AIS Super 3G as ISP.

Will install another firewall and see if that stops it.