Computer Hope
Software => Computer viruses and spyware => Topic started by: Zomalaja on March 24, 2012, 06:31:32 PM
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On my boot drive, the Master Boot Record is on sector 0, as it is on all drives. The c: drive Partition Boot Sector is on sector 19 - I have data on sector 10 on one computer and nothing but zeros on all my other computers. I have zeroed out sector 10 several times, rebooted and verified that sector 10 is blank. However, data re-appears there after a random period of time. I have done several full scans using AVG, Symantec, Trend and all show nothing. Something is writing this data and I don't know what it is.
The data always has the first 8 bytes the same D4 41 A0 F5 03 00 03 00 but the rest is different. Any insights would certainly be appreciated
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It's used by AutoCAD 2011 to keep track of it's license information, so even if you format the drive (assuming you don't write zeros) the data will still be there. It doesn't reappear randomly. Only when you next start AutoCad 2011.
Technically, it's from Flexnet Publisher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexNet_Publisher), a licensing manager, but AutoDesk is probably one of their biggest customers.
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I don't have AutoCAD installed and never have, I will see if I can find anything using Flexnet. Thanks very much for the info.
Update - looks like Adobe Acrobat uses Flexnet.
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Thanks BC for that link. Never knew. That might explain some other things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexNet_Publisher
FlexNet Publisher (formerly known as FLEXlm) is a common software license manager from Flexera Software which implements license management and is intended to be used in corporate environments to provide floating licenses to multiple end users of computer software.
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Issues with Bootloaders
Due to the way the DRM works, FlexNet Publisher is incompatible with TrueCrypt products[4] and can make Linux-based systems unable to boot.[5][6]