*.dat file - virus? trojan?

[oerficus]

Hi!
A friend of mine came up to me asking me a question I couldn't answer him yesterday. So hopefully you can.
When surfing through the web, suddenly a *.dat file cropped up on the desktop even though he wasn't downloading anything or so. So he asked me wether the file could be some kind of virus or trojan thing. I am not sure if it could be but I guess it would be too obvious placing such a file on the desktop of a computer.
So what's your opinion? Could it be some kind of virus or trojan? Or what else could be the reason for the file being there?

Thx in advance, Oerficus

PS: I certainly hope I am making no fool of myself asking this

 

[MiseryQ]

I just did some looking at sysmantec... I did not see any viriie that were or caused dat files...

If he thinks it's a virus then a check is in oreder... Symantec and MicroTrendss do online scanning if he has no Av on his system...

 

[eGoalter]

who knows

isnt a .dat file a microsoft office file format?did ya scan it?

 

[oerficus]

Hi again!
Thx for the responses but I finally found out what the problem was.
For everybody who is interested or has a similar problem with a file called rdxr02035.dat cropping up on your desktop here are two links you should check out.

http://www.panicware.com/
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175305.html

Cheers, Oerficus