rjoeng 0 Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Hi. I've had ESET Smart Security on my laptop for quite some time now. When I first installed it, I configured the Anti-Theft feature and set up a Phantom Account with a name of my choosing. Recently, and much to my surprise when I turned on my laptop two days ago, I noticed a new user account with the name "ymvifpcstwob". Thinking this may be some kind of security breach I immediately deleted the account. However, when I booted up yesterday, the same new user account was there. Since it was a Standard User with no password, I logged in and found nothing suspicious. However, upon returning to my own account I found an e-mail from ESET saying that suspicious activity has been noted and asked if my computer had been stolen. Therefore, I am now wondering if somehow the latest version of ESET is putting this new Phantom Account on my laptop. Does anyone have any information on this? I would greatly appreciate any input. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Marcos 5,069 Posted June 2, 2014 Administrators Share Posted June 2, 2014 Did you intentionally enable Anti-Theft after installation? If so, a phantom account would have been created. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjoeng 0 Posted June 2, 2014 Author Share Posted June 2, 2014 If I remember correctly, I enabled Anti-Theft during its initial installation. At that time the installation walked me through the creation of a phantom account, which I named "Guest1". This phantom account has now been in existence for more than a year, and during all that time I never saw another phantom account created by ESET - until a few days ago. That is why I'm wondering if in fact it really was created by ESET and not by an outsider that breached my security. Do you know if newer, upgraded versions of ESET create their own phantom account? And if so, where on the ESET web site would I find confirmation of this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Most Valued Members planet 232 Posted June 3, 2014 Most Valued Members Share Posted June 3, 2014 I noticed a new user account with the name "ymvifpcstwob". I'm wondering if in fact it really was created by ESET and not by an outsider that breached my security. Sounds similar to my experience a while ago... was running Smart Security on Windows 8 and even though I set a name for it a random user account appeared with similar jumbled letters. After deleting it and rebooting, the same user appeared. I basically disabled anti-theft within the program, uninstalled Smart Security from 'Add/Remove Programs', rebooted to see the user with jumbled letters removed (but if it's not, just remove it yourself), downloaded and reinstalled a fresh version from the ESET website and reconfigured it from scratch (not export and import settings). Then, the right user was created with the name I wanted for anti-theft and not one with jumbled letters since. So to answer your recent post, it also happened to me and occurred from Smart Security and anti-theft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arakasi 549 Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 (edited) Hey guys, although i have not seen myself the aforementioned bug, and i install ESET daily for people. I do recall assisting a user here with repairing by changing the phantom account name from the web portal, once, and then a second time to verify. However i am not sure if he just stumbed upon the strange "alphanumeric" user account and it was renamed, or if he had 'two' user profile accounts. At any rate planet's suggestion to delete the profile may be good enough. I would try not to delete the ESET profile though as you may have to reinstall at that point too, unless the web portal will assist with new creation. Try to follow the guidelines here as well, as other methods require decent experience with windows profiles. Edited June 3, 2014 by Arakasi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Most Valued Members planet 232 Posted June 3, 2014 Most Valued Members Share Posted June 3, 2014 (edited) At any rate planet's suggestion to delete the profile may be good enough. I would try not to delete the ESET profile though as you may have to reinstall at that point too, unless the web portal will assist with new creation. EDIT: Whoops! Understood now. Now that I think of it, maybe even just disabling anti-theft from Smart Security, removing device from myESET (if still listed), removing the phantom account (if still there) and reenabling anti-theft (setting it up again) may work, avoiding having to reinstall Smart Security itself. -- Sorry Arakasi, little confused - I did disable anti-theft from within Smart Security first, uninstalled Smart Security, then visited my.eset.com to see if the device was removed (and would remove it if not). When I reinstalled Smart Security, enabled anti-theft again (including logging into myESET) and set the User Account name, and myESET added the device again. So basically I uninstalled, removed the device from myESET and essentially started again, like the device wasn't with myESET Anti-theft in the first place. Edited June 3, 2014 by planet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savtav 0 Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 Suddenly, after 6 months of using this new laptop with ESET, a new user appeared, with the name of a friend I rarely communicate with. I deleted it, but it reappeared a week later, and then disappeared by itself the next time I logged in. Scary. Any ideas? Suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Marcos 5,069 Posted October 16, 2015 Administrators Share Posted October 16, 2015 Suddenly, after 6 months of using this new laptop with ESET, a new user appeared, with the name of a friend I rarely communicate with. I deleted it, but it reappeared a week later, and then disappeared by itself the next time I logged in. Scary. Any ideas? Suggestions? Did you actually try to disable Anti-Theft? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stueycaster 0 Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 (edited) The other day my computer came up with a third user account with a randomly lettered name too. Someone who was at my place tried to start up and use my computer. They were using the Phantom account when I got home since they couldn't use my account. They were looking for some online info. There was nothing malicious going on. It triggered the Antitheft website to question if my computer was stolen. I take it that ESS started up a new phantom account because antitheft thought the computer was stolen. It wouldn't allow me to delete this account until after I went to the Antitheft website and assured that the computer hadn't been stolen. Then I was able to delete the extra account. At least that's what I think went on. I'd like to know if I'm right or not. Could someone please let me know? Edited October 16, 2015 by stueycaster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Destarah 6 Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 This also happened on one of my client's computers. I removed the account from Windows, logged into myeset.com and manually changed the randomly assigned account name it had come up with to a specific name of my choosing. My best guess is that ESET updated the web software to automatically assign these randomly generated account names when Anti-theft is activated, but didn't consider the impact to existing users. We'll see if it happens again, and methinks I will reach out to my other clients that are using Anti-theft Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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