Monthly Archives: February 2015

Remove mmotraffic.com Pop Up Ads Caused By Adware

February 23, 2015pop-ups217.149.70.40Roger Karlsson

Did you just get a pop-up from mmotraffic.com and ponder where it came from? Did the mmotraffic.com ad appear to have been popped up from a web site that under normal circumstances don’t use aggressive advertising such as pop-up windows? Or did the mmotraffic.com pop-up show up while you clicked a link on one of the big search engines, such as Google, Bing or Yahoo?

Here is a screen capture on the mmotraffic.com pop-up tab from my system:

The URL mentions poster.gogames.me.

If this description sounds like what you are seeing, you presumably have some adware installed on your system that pops up the mmotraffic.com ads. So there’s no use contacting the site owner. The ads are not coming from them. I’ll try help you with the mmotraffic.com removal in this blog post. This is done by removing the unwanted adware from your computer.

If you have been visiting this blog already know this, but if you are new: Some time ago I dedicated some of my lab machines and wilfully installed some adware programs on them. Since then I’ve been tracking the behaviour on these machines to see what kinds of advertisements that are displayed. I’m also looking on other interesting things such as if the adware updates itself automatically, or if it downloads additional unwanted software on the machines. I first observed the mmotraffic.com pop-up on one of these lab machines.

mmotraffic.com resolves to the 217.149.70.40 address. mmotraffic.com was created on 2008-08-22.

So, how do you remove the mmotraffic.com pop-up ads? On the machine where I got the mmotraffic.com ads I had TinyWallet, BrowserWarden and BlockAndSurf installed. I removed them with FreeFixer and that stopped the mmotraffic.com pop-ups and all the other ads I was getting in Mozilla Firefox.

It seems as mmotraffic.com is getting quite a lot of traffic, based on Alexa’s traffic rank:

The bad news with pop-ups such as this one is that it can be popped up by many variants of adware, not just the adware on my computer. This makes it impossible to say exactly what you need to remove to stop the pop-ups.

So, what should done to solve the problem? To remove the mmotraffic.com pop-up ads you need to check your machine for adware or other types of unwanted software and uninstall it. Here’s my suggested removal procedure:

The first thing I would do to remove the mmotraffic.com pop-ups is to examine the programs installed on the machine, by opening the “Uninstall programs” dialog. You can find this dialog from the Windows Control Panel. If you are using one of the more recent versions of Windows you can just type in “uninstall” in the Control Panel’s search field to find that dialog:

Click on the “Uninstall a program” link and the Uninstall programs dialog will open up:

Do you see something suspicious listed there or something that you don’t remember installing? Tip: Sort on the “Installed On” column to see if some program was installed approximately about the same time as you started observing the mmotraffic.com pop-ups.

Then I would check the browser add-ons. Adware often show up under the add-ons menu in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari. Is there something that looks suspicious? Something that you don’t remember installing?

I think you will be able to track down and remove the adware with the steps outlined above, but in case that did not work you can try the FreeFixer removal tool to identify and remove the adware. FreeFixer is a freeware tool that I started develop many years ago. Freefixer is a tool designed to manually track down and remove unwanted software. When you’ve found the unwanted files you can simply tick a checkbox and click on the Fix button to remove the unwanted file.

FreeFixer’s removal feature is not locked down like many other removal tools out there. It won’t require you to pay a fee just when you are about to remove the unwanted files.

And if you’re having a mess figuring out if a file is legitimate or unsafe in FreeFixer’s scan result, click on the More Info link for the file. That will open up your browser with a page which contains more information about the file. On that web page, check out the VirusTotal report which can be quite useful:

FreeFixer More Info link example — An example of FreeFixer’s “More Info” links. Click for full size.

Did you find any adware on your machine? Did that stop the mmotraffic.com ads? Please post the name of the adware you uninstalled from your machine in the comment below.

Thank you!

Remove targetingadvertiser.com Pop Up Ads

February 23, 2015pop-ups54.244.235.229Roger Karlsson

Does this sound familiar? You see pop-up ads from targetingadvertiser.com while browsing web sites that typically don’t advertise in pop-up windows. The pop-ups manage to evade the built-in pop-up blockers in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari or Opera. Maybe the targetingadvertiser.com pop-ups appear when clicking search results from the Google search engine? Or does the pop-ups appear even when you’re not browsing?

Here’s how the targetingadvertiser.com pop-up looked like when I got it on my system:

The subdomains is a.targetingadvertiser.com.

If you also see this on your system, you almost certainly have some adware installed on your machine that pops up the targetingadvertiser.com ads. So there’s no use contacting the site owner. The ads are not coming from them. I’ll try help you with the targetingadvertiser.com removal in this blog post.

Those that have been reading this blog already know this, but for new visitors: Recently I dedicated a few of my lab systems and deliberately installed a few adware programs on them. I have been following the behaviour on these computers to see what kinds of advertisements that are displayed. I’m also looking on other interesting things such as if the adware auto-updates, or if it downloads and installs additional unwanted software on the computers. I first noticed the targetingadvertiser.com pop-up on one of these lab machines.

a.targetingadvertiser.com resolves to 54.244.235.229. Here’s the traffic rank, thanks to Alexa:

So, how do you remove the targetingadvertiser.com pop-up ads? On the machine where I got the targetingadvertiser.com ads I had installed. I removed them with FreeFixer and that stopped the targetingadvertiser.com pop-ups and all the other ads I was getting in .

The bad news with pop-ups such as this one is that it can be popped up by many variants of adware, not just the adware that’s installed on my computer. This makes it impossible to say exactly what you need to remove to stop the pop-ups.

Anyway, here’s my suggestion for the targetingadvertiser.com ads removal:

What software do you have installed if you look in the Add/Remove programs dialog in the Windows Control Panel? Something that you don’t remember installing yourself or that was recently installed?
You can also check the browser add-ons. Same thing here, do you see anything that you don’t remember installing?
If that did not help, I’d recommend a scan with FreeFixer to manually track down the adware. FreeFixer is a freeware tool that I’m working on that scans your computer at lots of locations, such as browser add-ons, processes, Windows services, recently modified files, etc. If you want to get additional details about a file in the scan result, you can click the More Info link for that file and a web page will open up with a VirusTotal report which will be very useful to determine if the file is safe or malware:
An example of FreeFixer’s “More Info” links. Click for full size.

Did this blog post help you to remove the targetingadvertiser.com pop-up ads? Please let me know or how I can improve this blog post.

Thank you!

Remove williamhill.com Pop Up Ads Caused By Adware

February 23, 2015pop-upsRoger Karlsson

Do you see pop-up ads from williamhill.com while browsing on web sites that normally don’t advertise in pop-up windows. The pop-ups manage to escape the built-in pop-up blockers in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari or Opera. Perhaps the williamhill.com popups appear when clicking search results from Google? Or does the pop-ups appear even when you’re not browsing?

Here’s how the williamhill.com pop-up looked like when I got it on my machine:

I first noticed this pop up back in December 2014, but now it appeared again, so I thought I should write a few lines about it. The actual subdomain is static.williamhill.com.

If this sounds like what you are seeing on your machine, you presumably have some adware installed on your machine that pops up the williamhill.com ads. Don’t blame the people that owns the website you were at, the ads are almost certainly not coming from that site, but from the adware that’s installed on your machine. I’ll try help you to remove the williamhill.com pop-ups in this blog post. This is done by removing the unwanted adware.

Those that have been visiting this blog already know this, but here we go: Not long ago I dedicated some of my lab machines and deliberately installed some adware programs on them. I have been monitoring the behaviour on these machines to see what kinds of advertisements that are displayed. I’m also looking on other interesting things such as if the adware updates itself, or if it installs additional unwanted software on the systems. I first observed the williamhill.com pop-up on one of these lab computers.

So, how do you remove the williamhill.com pop-up ads? On the machine where I got the williamhill.com ads I had BlockAndSurf, TinyWallet and BrowserWarden installed. I removed them with FreeFixer and that stopped the williamhill.com pop-ups and all the other ads I was getting in .

The problem with pop-ups like this one is that it can be launched by many variants of adware, not just the adware that’s installed on my system. This makes it impossible to say exactly what you need to remove to stop the pop-ups.

So, what should done to solve the problem? To remove the williamhill.com pop up ads you need to examine your machine for adware or other types of unwanted software and uninstall it. Here’s my suggested removal procedure:

What software do you have installed if you look in the Add/Remove programs dialog in the Windows Control Panel? Something that you don’t remember installing yourself or that was recently installed?
You can also check the add-ons you have in your browsers. Same thing here, do you see anything that you don’t remember installing?
If that did not help, you can give FreeFixer a try. FreeFixer is built to assist users when manually tracking down adware and other types of unwanted software. It is a freeware utility that I’ve been working since 2006 and it scans your machine at lots of locations where unwanted software is known to hook into your system. If you would like to get additional details about a file in FreeFixer’s scan result, you can just click the More Info link for that file and a web page with a VirusTotal report will open up, which can be very useful to determine if the file is safe or malware:
An example of FreeFixer’s “More Info” links. Click for full size.

Here you can see FreeFixer in action removing pop-up ads:

Did this blog post help you to remove the williamhill.com pop-up ads? Please let me know or how I can improve this blog post.

Thank you!

Remove rvfrm2007.com Pop Up Ads

February 23, 2015pop-ups173.192.117.80, Israel, MYADWISE LTDRoger Karlsson

Did you just get a pop-up from rvfrm2007.com and ask yourself where it came from? Did the rvfrm2007.com ad appear to have been popped up from a web site that under normal circumstances don’t use aggressive advertising such as pop-up windows? Or did the rvfrm2007.com pop-up show up while you clicked a link on one of the major search engines, such as Google, Bing or Yahoo?

Here is how the rvfrm2007.com ad looked like on my machine when it appeared in a new tab:

The pop up mentions the ad124m.adk2.net domain. After a while, I was redirected to a igame.com ad.

If you also see this on your computer, you presumably have some adware installed on your computer that pops up the rvfrm2007.com ads. Contacting the site owner would be a waste of time. The ads are not coming from them. I’ll do my best to help you remove the rvfrm2007.com pop-up in this blog post.

For those that are new to the blog: Recently I dedicated some of my lab computers and wilfully installed a few adware programs on them. Since then I have been following the behaviour on these machines to see what kinds of advertisements that are displayed. I’m also looking on other interesting things such as if the adware updates itself, or if it downloads additional unwanted software on the machines. I first observed the rvfrm2007.com pop-up on one of these lab machines.

rvfrm2007.com resolves to the 173.192.117.80 IP address. rvfrm2007.com was created on 2015-01-01. Here’s some of the WHOIS info:

Registrant Name: DNS ADMIN
Registrant Organization: MYADWISE LTD.
Registrant Street: HAPLADA 5
Registrant City: OR YEHUDA
Registrant Country: IL

So, how do you remove the rvfrm2007.com pop-up ads? On the machine where I got the rvfrm2007.com ads I had BlockAndSurf, TinyWallet and BrowserWarden installed. I removed them with FreeFixer and that stopped the rvfrm2007.com pop-ups and all the other ads I was getting in Mozilla Firefox.

The issue with this type of pop-up is that it can be initiated by many variants of adware. This makes it impossible to say exactly what you need to remove to stop the pop-ups.

So, what can be done to solve the problem? To remove the rvfrm2007.com popup ads you need to review your system for adware or other types of unwanted software and uninstall it. Here’s my suggested removal procedure:

The first thing I would do to remove the rvfrm2007.com pop-ups is to examine the programs installed on the machine, by opening the “Uninstall programs” dialog. You can reach this dialog from the Windows Control Panel. If you are using one of the more recent versions of Windows you can just type in “uninstall” in the Control Panel’s search field to find that dialog:

Click on the “Uninstall a program” link and the Uninstall programs dialog will open up:

Do you see something suspicious listed there or something that you don’t remember installing? Tip: Sort on the “Installed On” column to see if something was installed about the same time as you started getting the rvfrm2007.com pop-ups.

The next thing to check would be your browser’s add-ons. Adware often appear under the add-ons dialog in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari or Opera. Is there anything that looks suspicious? Something that you don’t remember installing?

I think you will be able to track down and remove the adware with the steps outlined above, but in case that did not work you can try the FreeFixer removal tool to identify and remove the adware. FreeFixer is a freeware tool that I started develop about 8 years ago. Freefixer is a tool built to manually track down and remove unwanted software. When you’ve found the unwanted files you can simply tick a checkbox and click on the Fix button to remove the unwanted file.

FreeFixer’s removal feature is not locked down like many other removal tools out there. It will not require you to pay a fee just when you are about to remove the unwanted files.

And if you’re having difficulties determining if a file is legit or unsafe in FreeFixer’s scan report, click on the More Info link for the file. That will open up your web browser with a page which contains additional information about the file. On that web page, check out the VirusTotal report which can be quite useful:

Here you can see FreeFixer in action removing pop-up ads:

Did you find any adware on your machine? Did that stop the rvfrm2007.com ads? Please post the name of the adware you uninstalled from your machine in the comment below.

Thank you!

Advertaizing Grupp – 19% Detection Rate – InstallCore

February 22, 2015digital signatureInstallCore, Moscow, RussiaRoger Karlsson

Hi there! If you are a regular here on the FreeFixer blog you know that I’ve been looking on the certificates used to sign files that bundled various types of unwanted software. Today I found another certificate, used by a publisher called Advertaizing Grupp.

You can view the certificate by right-clicking on the file, and looking under the Digital Signature tab: According to the embedded certificate we can see that Advertaizing Grupp is located in Russia and that the certificate is issued by COMODO RSA Code Signing CA.

What caught my attention was that the download was called adobe_flash_setup.exe. This might look like an official Adobe Flash Player download, but it is not. If it was an official download, it would be signed by Adobe Systems Incorporated. Here’s how the authentic Adobe Flash Player looks like when you double click on it. Notice that the “Verified publisher” says “Adobe Systems Incorporated”.

So, what does the anti-virus programs say about the Advertaizing Grupp file? No problem, I just uploaded the file to VirusTotal and it turned out that many of the anti-virus programs detects the Advertaizing Grupp file, with names such as Win32:Rootkit-gen [Rtk], Adware/InstallCo.zlz, Trojan.InstallCore.57, Trojan ( 004b4b721 ), Riskware.Win32.InstallCore.dnxkbc and Win32/Tnega.MFNTaRB.

Did you also find a download that was digitally signed by Advertaizing Grupp? What kind of download was it and was it detected by the anti-virus progams at VirusTotal? Please share in posting comments below.

Hope this blog post helped you avoid some unwanted software on your machine.

Thank you for reading.

Interesting Solutions – 16% Anti-Virus Detection Rate – PullUpdate / PUP.Optional.WebGuard.A

February 22, 2015digital signatureRoger Karlsson

Welcome! If you’ve been following me for the last year you know that I’ve been examining many software publishers that put a digital signature on their downloads. I’ve seen lots of submission of Interesting Solutions files to the FreeFixer database, so I thought it was about time to write a few lines about this publisher.

The scan result from VirusTotal below clearly shows why you probably should avoid the Interesting Solutions files. It is detected under names such as Downloader.CBD, Adware.Yontoo.55, a variant of MSIL/Adware.PullUpdate.G.gen, PUP.Optional.WebGuard.A, HEUR/QVM03.0.Malware.Gen and Injekt (fs).

Did you also find a Interesting Solutions file? Do you remember the download link for the software that bundled Interesting Solutions? Please let me know so I can test it out on my lab machine.

Thanks for reading.

Stepan Rybin – 44% Detection Rate – MultiPlug / Adware.Mikey

February 22, 2015digital signatureAdware.Mikey, Eldorado, MultiPlugRoger Karlsson

Hello! Did you see a file, such as WhatsApp.exe, on your system signed by Stepan Rybin? Then read on..

I found this Stepan Rybin file while reviewing some of the submissions to the FreeFixer web site. I thought it looked a little bit like a typical “MultiPlug” adware file and the VirusTotal scan result showed that was the case. Ad-Aware reports WhatsApp.exe as Gen:Variant.Adware.Mikey.7658, Avast calls it Win32:MultiPlug-TP [PUP], Cyren names it W32/S-05e718fa!Eldorado, F-Prot calls it W32/S-05e718fa!Eldorado and Sophos detects it as MultiPlug.

Did you also find a Stepan Rybin download? Do you remember where you downloaded it? Please post the URL in the comments below. I’d like to install this download on my lab machine to have a closer look at it.

Thank you for reading.

System Alerts – 16% Anti-Virus Detection Rate – Adware.Agent.PHD

February 22, 2015digital signatureRoger Karlsson

Welcome! Was as usual looking though some of the recent submissions to the FreeFixer database and0 found an interesting file, signed by System Alerts. The file is named v7GATO64.dll.

The VirusTotal report shows that the System Alerts file should probably be avoided, unless you like adware on your machine of course;) v7GATO64.dll is detected as Adware.Agent.PHD by BitDefender, Adware.Agent.PHD by F-Secure, Adware.Agent.PHD by nProtect and Suspicious_GEN.F47V0209 by TrendMicro-HouseCall.

Did you also find a file digitally signed by System Alerts? What kind of download was it and where did you find it? Please let me know, I’d like to test this adware on my lab machine.

Thank you for reading.

Remove i.imgur.com Connections Caused By Adware

February 21, 2015browser status barRoger Karlsson

This page shows how to remove i.imgur.com connections, caused by adware, from Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer.

I noticed i.imgur.com in my browser’s status bar when doing a search at Google. Under normal circumstances, a search at Google should not generate a connection to i.imgur.com. If this is what you are experiencing, you may have some adware installed on your machine. More on that later on.

The following are some of the status bar messages you may see in your browser’s status bar:

Waiting for i.imgur.com…
Transferring data from i.imgur.com…
Looking up i.imgur.com…
Read i.imgur.com
Connected to i.imgur.com…

Those that have been following this blog already know this, but for new visitors: Not long ago I dedicated a few of my lab machines and purposely installed some potentially unwanted programs on them. I have been tracking the behaviour on these computers to see what kinds of advertisements that are displayed. I’m also looking on other interesting things such as if the potentially unwanted program updates itself, or if it downloads and installs additional potentially unwanted programs on the machines. I first found the i.imgur.com in Firefox’s status bar on one of these lab machines.

So, how do you remove i.imgur.com from your web browser? The answer is: By removing the adware from your machine. On the machine where i.imgur.com showed up in the status bar I had an adware called CheckMeUp installed. I removed CheckMeUp with FreeFixer and that stopped the browser from loading data from i.imgur.com.

The problem with statusbar messages like this one is that I think it can be caused by many variants of potentially unwanted programs, not just the CheckMeUp adware on my system. This makes it impossible to say exactly what you need to remove to stop the statusbar messages.

So, what can be done? To remove i.imgur.com you need to check your computer for potentially unwanted programs and uninstall them. Here’s my suggested removal procedure:

The first thing I would do to remove i.imgur.com is to examine the software installed on the machine, by opening the “Uninstall programs” dialog. You can open this dialog from the Windows Control Panel. If you are using one of the more recent versions of Windows you can just type in “uninstall” in the Control Panel’s search field to find that dialog:

Click on the “Uninstall a program” link and the Uninstall programs dialog will open up:

Do you see something suspect in there or something that you don’t remember installing? Tip: Sort on the “Installed On” column to see if something was installed about the same time as you started seeing the i.imgur.com status bar messages. Do you see CheckMeUp there?

Then you can examine you browser add-ons. Potentially unwanted program often turn up under the add-ons dialog in Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer or Safari. Is there anything that looks suspicious? Something that you don’t remember installing? Is CheckMeUp listed there?

I think you will be able to track down and remove the potentially unwanted program with the steps outlined above, but in case that did not work you can try the FreeFixer removal tool to identify and remove the potentially unwanted program. FreeFixer is a freeware tool that I started develop about 8 years ago. Freefixer is a tool designed to manually find and uninstall unwanted software. When you’ve identified the unwanted files you can simply tick a checkbox and click on the Fix button to remove the unwanted file.

FreeFixer’s removal feature is not locked down like many other removal tools out there. It won’t require you to pay a fee just when you are about to remove the unwanted files.

And if you’re having a mess figuring out if a file is legitimate or potentially unwanted in FreeFixer’s scan result, click on the More Info link for the file. That will open up a web page which contains additional details about the file. On that web page, check out the VirusTotal report which can be very useful:

Did this blog post help you to remove i.imgur.com? Please let me know or how I can improve this blog post.

Thank you!