Spyware Information: CWS.IEFeats
This is a hijacker application. Hijackers take control of your web browser's settings, and usually change your homepage, search page or other default pages to point to web sites owned by the hijacker. Since the hijackers can make money based on the number of visits to their web sites, they benefit from forcing you to view their web sites each time your web browser opens.
Hijackers don't normally damage your computer or steal your personal information.
- Size: 5,366,784 bytes
- Threat level: Medium (more info...)
- Detections: 56,537 this month: 1
- Author: CoolWebSearch.com
- Appeared: Variants from August, 2002 to February, 2004
Research
- Advertising: CWS does advertise, primarily pornography. Its software tries to figure out if the pages you are viewing are porn-related, and if so may open a popup. It may also pop up ad links in a separate window when you're using search engines.
- Browser degradation: The calculations it does on the pages you visit will slow performance of Internet Explorer.
- Privacy issues: None.
- Security issues: The program adds "coolwebsearch.com" to the user's listed of Trusted Sites, which enables that site greater access to your computer. It can also install code without user permissions.
- Stability issues: Some versions of this program intercept network traffic at a low level. If this program malfunctions, or is removed improperly, it may cause your network to stop functioning entirely.
Spyware Detection Stats
- Spyware Fingerprints: 91,859
- Detections: 6,792,655
- Detections this Month: 802
Spyware Search
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