HP Communication Reset

The virus doesn't exist. Look up the virus on Google. Read the other review thread. If you're concerned, then delete the file, create a text file (not RTF) containing #! /usr/bin/python "Kill then HP printing daemon" import sys, re, os os.environ['PATH']=os.path.normpath(os.environ['PATH']+':/usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current') b = 'ps -x | grep Communica|grep HP' a = os.popen(b).read().split() print a[0] os.system('kill ' + a[0]) Read the README file to chmod it, then download MacPython 2.5 and use Build Applet.app to make hpkill.app from hpkill.py You probably don't need that entire path in there. It's legacy from another script I wrote a while back. It doesn't cause any harm, though, since I don't even have some of those directories anymore.

I just updated because hpkill.app was broken. After that, I ran virex on the whole thing and it didn't report anything. I'm not sure how a script file could really have much of a virus anyway. Anyway, please try the new version with your virus scanner.

At this point, I suspect that virusbarrier is (over) reacting to the code contained in the script. Here is their webpage on it: http://www.intego.com/news/ism0602.asp. A quick Google of the issue "osx.exploit.metadata.b" will provide more information.

I agree. The script is designed to kill off a system process, so that may look unfriendly to a virus scanner. Apparently there is a way to modify it so it doesn't look so, but I don't know how to do that. I've read that that virus scanner is a little psychotic.