A new bug in csrss.exe ??

From: H. Debs (no@spam.com)
Date: 11/14/02 

From: "H. Debs" <no@spam.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 22:36:44 +0100

This is the 3rd or 4th time I see a dialog box pop up on my Win2000 SP3
system, with an ADVERTISEMENT! Looking at the Task Manager, I discover that
the thread responsible for this new process is csrss.exe. The window title
and process are called "Messenger service" or something similar, and the
text in this dialog box window is a well known SPAM advertisement for
"University Diplomas" which I'm sure everyone has received by email at some
point, especially if they have a hotmail account.

This is *not* a regular IE popup. The dialog box has the regular close [X]
button, and an "OK" button only. No icons. I think I was always connected to
the internet when I got this message (about 4 times in the past month).

I have up to date versions of Norton Antivirus 2002 and ZoneAlarm Pro
running, configured for maximum security. I also frequently update and run
AdAware and I'm positive there's no Spyware nor virus on my system.

I read a bit about csrss.exe and it appears to handle text displays in
consoles (dos boxes), so how can this dialog box be related to it?

Regarding the window title "Messenger service", I never have the windows
Messenger application running (removed it from the startup programs a long
time ago), and do not have any account with Messenger, and never even set it
up or used it.
But I do have a hotmail account. However, I'm not logged into my hotmail
account when this occurs, nor is Outlook Express running at the time this
happens (I've configured it to fetch my hotmail email), so I shouldn't be
logged in. So can this be a Microsoft Messenger abuse or vulnerability? Or
just a ruse?

Anyone seen this problem before, or knows how I can kill it?