Unknown tasks running - e9e87558-3d46-49e9-bde6-f8b84dace1c6

Yesterday, I found that Task scheduler, Status of tasks that have started in the following time period: had an entry with no Triggered by entry for task
{e9e87558-3d46-49e9-bde6-f8b84dace1c6}
but I was unable to find any reference to it in Task scheduler's task definition lists, in the Registry or anywhere else. Googling it turned up no results either.

Today, it has been task
{f3fe9eb4-03f1-4718-51cf7327ff6a}
but I have been unable to track that one down either.

Neither Windows Defender nor Malwarebytes can find anything suspicious.

Has any body else seen tasks such as these?

Denis

Can you take a screenshot of it?

no, I have not seen it running

Sorry. I was a little unclear. I meant to say to take a screen shot of the Task in Task Scheduler, like so (but also please, select the "Actions" tab at the bottom):

As I wrote in my original post, the task only appears in Task scheduler, Status of tasks that have started in the following time period: and nowhere else.

And I have not managed to catch it running.

Denis

Oh wow, Ok i'm really sorry I misunderstood what you meant.

I just found the "Status of tasks that have started in the following time period", but too bad mine doesn't show anything at all. I guess the log is somehow disabled which is inconvenient. But the box at the bottom shows a bunch of things (refer to picture).

I double clicked one of those entries below, and it took me to the folder on the left of where that task is. I don't know if you tried double clicking it, and maybe it took you to its location?

EDIT: Hmm, double clicking it probably doesn't do anything I'm guessing (because I just noticed that there's the location tab in the bottom entries). Maybe somebody else has more insight on this?

I have just managed to catch it running but this has not helped at all.



- It is not shown in the list of running tasks [also displayed], both entries of which are legitimate ones.
- It has also run in the meantime. Each time "it" runs it has a different number in its name.
- The start time 04:48 has no significance that is apparent to me. At around that time I was looking around & posting in TenForums and looking around Amazon.co.uk

There is nothing pointing to this task in Task manager or in a Tasklist output.

My concern is that this is malware but nothing shows up in in scanning -
WD quick, full, offline scans, and
Malwarebytes full scan.
My other networked computers do not suffer from this issue. The only sufferer is this Dell Inspiron 7779.

About "I double clicked one of those entries below, and it took me to the folder on the left of where that task is. I don't know if you tried double clicking it, and maybe it took you to its location?"
- the task only appears in Task scheduler, Status of tasks that have started in the following time period: and nowhere else [including not in the list of Active tasks to which you refer].

There is nothing suspicious in any AutoRuns entries.

The task has now run under different names 4 times without leaving any trace behind [not even a Triggered by entry].

None of the times mean anything to me.
- The start times do not seem to match anything else including other tasks, switching on, connecting to my network or the internet.
- It is possible that the stop times match sending the computer into hibernation or turning it off but that does not help anyway. [Added later - I have just restarted the computer and the end time of the last one, shown above, is the time I restarted]
- [Added later - It has not started up again yet and I have been back online for about ten minutes.]

I think that I am overreacting by suspecting malware because even that gets commented on so I would expect to find references to its names somewhere online.

I will give myself a few hours to calm down & regain some commonsense then, if that doesn't help, I will update Windows Defender & Malwarebytes and run full scans of one then the other on every computer. I bet they all come out smelling of roses.


Denis

Have you tried TaskSchedulerView by Nirsoft, to see if it shows anything different ?

Task Scheduler Viewer for Windows 10/7/8/Vista

Or is anything showing under C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\ in Explorer ?