System Crawl - LSASS.exe related

[RMorewood]

My daughter's "windows" machine started to crawl.

Checking the Task Manager showed:

LSASS.exe (belonging to SYSTEM) using about 75% of CPU time

with HotkeyApp.exe (belonging to different user - logged in but not active) using most of the remaining 25%.

Rebooting sent both back to 0% CPU time.

The only copy of LSASS.exe on that machine is the one in the Window System32 directory.

Any idea why LSASS hijacked the system?

One possibly relevant detail: Shortly before the problem was noticed, access to the internet was lost due

to a power failure at the cable modem. However, the wireless local area network connecting this

machine to the rest of the household computers (and the cable modem) remained active.

[10west]

lsass shouldn't do much cpu activity, it's a security file, but is the root target of the 'sasser', and other viral install clones, which then open holes for others, check ms security bulletins, which run through it's imposter, threading them in, and keeping busier than normal

http://ask-leo.com/what_are_lsass_lsassexe...do_if_i_am.html