Powershell Ambiguous Code Running on Windows Machine

Question

Out of sudden, a colleague of mine found a script that runs during the startup of the Windows on his machine, which is found to be a powershell script.

The code is below, what I understood that it only minimizes all windows opened.

powershell -command "& { $x = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application; $x.minimizeall() }"

I need to know if there is an impact from this code on his machine as to isolate from the network.

Todd Walton · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-20 15:58:00Z

1

It doesn't seem to present a threat in and of itself. If someone is doing something unwanted, it would probably be that they're starting some other program that does something not nice, and this PowerShell command minimizes its window (possibly to the taskbar notification area where it can be hidden) so that you don't see what's going on. But the command itself appears harmless.

answered Feb 20, 2017 at 15:58

Todd Walton

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2 Comments

sikas Over a year ago

So, it is preferable to fully scan the device?

Todd Walton Over a year ago

Always a good idea to fully scan for viruses and the like once in a while!

Ranadip Dutta · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-20 16:00:10Z

1

It only minimizes all the windows. Except that nothing else. I don't think it is harmful. If someone has kept it in the startup, I believe the reason being some other App is opening window in the startup , so it is trying to avoid that.

answered Feb 20, 2017 at 16:00

Ranadip Dutta

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