Everything you need to know about the Google redirect virus
Browser redirect viruses have been labelled as ‘the plague of the Internet’ by many leading security researchers and this is mainly aimed at the Google redirect virus. If you happen to become infected by such a virus then you are one of the many millions who have experienced the same fate worldwide over the past few years.
Fear not though, there are steps you can take to completely remove the virus and also prevent further infection which you can see in the section below titled: ‘Google redirect virus – how to remove’.
Many leading anti-virus vendors have noticed that malware has become a lot more sophisticated as of late and is able to hide itself and avoid detection a lot more so than it did several years ago. This video below gives a brief overview of the problem:
To give you an idea to the sophisticated methods that hackers now have, this article here explains how Kaspersky (a leading body in computer security) had their website infected by malware creators.
Understanding the Google redirect virus and other browser redirect viruses
These types of virus share one thing in common, they effect the core browsing functionality and in particular, search engine result pages. Very few people can get by on the Internet without using search engines and they have become the hub of most Internet traffic. It was only a matter of time before malware creators were able to exploit this fact and create viruses that target search engines such as Google. The most common motives behind these types of viruses, and in particular, the Google redirect virus are:
• Financial gain; this is done through forced advertisements, affiliate cookie dropping, silent advertisement clicking in the background and various other methods based around affiliate advertising.
• Botnet ‘zombie’ distribution; your computer will become another victim to a botnet which is controlled by hackers. See below on ‘What is a botnet’.
• Further malware distribution; usually this comes back to the original motive; financial gain. Further malware might in the shape of a key logger or phishing virus that will be used to try to target your online banking and other financial based websites.
What is a botnet? - A botnet is essentially a big collection of infected computers which are controlled by a series of ‘mothership’ servers. Hackers and authors of the botnet can issue commands to the ‘zombie’ machines and get them to carry out any number of malicious tasks which include but are not limited to; sending huge amounts of spam emails, sending distributed denial of service attacks and relaying information for other hackers by acting as proxy servers.
What is at risk if you become infected by the Google redirect virus?
The answer to this really does depend a lot upon the type of redirect virus you happen to become infected by. Whilst the Google redirect virus is pretty much a single existence, there are many similar variations that are operated by different malware creators. You are likely to see the most common symptom; you will be redirect to other websites when using search engines like Google. You will probably also find that your security software (anti-virus and anti-malware) will stop updating and may even cease to operate. The Google redirect virus will do this to attempt to prevent detection and removal.
There is usually a lot of background activity that goes on when you become infected by a browser redirect virus such as the Google one. Most of this you won’t notice but some of it can be very malicious indeed (key loggers in particular which can log all the keystrokes you make on your computer). The bottom end of spectrum is this; you will have advertisements forced on you and will also become very annoyed with not being able to browse the sites you want to visit. At the more malicious end of the spectrum you will be redirect to phishing websites that will try and steal your login details for most common websites (facebook, paypal, ebay just to name a few). On top of that you will have a very stubborn rootkit on your computer and be part of a botnet. At this point there is no telling what data could be exposed to hackers and identity thieves.
Google redirect virus – how to remove
The virus is one of the most stubborn viruses currently making its way around the Internet. Around 80% of vendors in the anti-virus industry are unable to remove the virus or even detect it in the first place. The first step you should take is to run a full anti-virus scan and see what it finds, you might get lucky.
For those that don’t you are highly recommended to use a tool such as Combofix which was created with one purpose – to target and remove the Google redirect virus. Unlike anti-virus vendors which have to protect against a wide spectrum of viruses and malware, Combofix specifically looks for Google redirect virus activity and knows exactly where to look to find it, this includes the root-kit variations that are certainly the most stubborn to remove.
The software is constantly being updated to keep up to date with the latest Google redirect virus variations. Currently it is priced at $29 which is very reasonable considering the functionality of the software. Even if you consider yourself to be a computer novice, the software has a very simple user interface and does all the hard work for you.
It is currently the best and most effective solution for removing the Google redirect virus and will guarantee a fix (or your money back).
If you have tried a full anti-virus scan with no success then Combofix is highly recommend to give you a hassle free fix without data loss.
Check out the official site here: http://fixredirectvirus.org
