What is Zone Identifier? [closed]

Question

I often saw some files which named 'blabla.exe:Zone.Identifier' monitoring I/O with Process Monitor.
The files could be seen network-drive.

• What is Zone.Identifier?
• What does the colon mean in the filename.

Is the colon related the file's extended attributes?

Answer 1

The text after the colon is an identifier for an "Alternate Data Stream". ADS is used to store meta-information about the file. For example, the Zone identifier stores whether the file was downloaded from the internet.

Some specific info: About URL Security Zones, Zone.Identifier Stream Name

Best is to google around for more information. Eg. this, this and this.

Finally, here's Streams, the Sysinternals tool for ADS.