WINWORD.EXE - vanishing doc's

Hello. I am a neophyte concerning computers and would appreciate any assistance.

My mom is having issues with her computer... She is running Microsoft Office 2003. She is running Avast virus scan and is using Comodo Firewall. She has told me that when she is using Word, a Comodo windo pops up saying that "winword.exe" wants acces to the internet through Internet Explorer. When the allows it her document vanishes and she is unable to find it. There is a remote IP addres that something is being sent to(?) This is in the comodo pop-up also. The IP address was 207.69.188.185 port:dns(53) - UDP.

Can anyone tell me anything about this, preferably in terms that a computer ignorant such as my self might understand? Thank you very much.

 

This sounds very wrong to me. Word will ask to connect to the net only if it needs a plug-in or Template you don't have installed, and it DEFINITLY will not make your documents dissapear as you say.

I would block all internet access for word for the moment.

Go here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...Id=&u=http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5837973 to make sure she has all the office updates.

You might want to post in the Malware forum and ask those guys if they have heard of this.

I don't want to panic you as I don't really use MS Office but this does not sound right.

 

Thanks birdbath I will check it out.

 

From DNSstuff:

207.69.188.185 PTR record: ns1.mindspring.com. [TTL 86400s] [A=207.69.188.185]

Mindspring/EarthLink is an ISP, does she use them as her service provider?

http://www.mindspring.net/

 

Sach,
Yes her ISP is Earthlink. Why would Word be trying to connect to the internet?