MyWebSearch does the trick!

Sep 3, 2007 12:57 GMT  ·  By

I guess that over the years all of you have become familiar with search engines. Some of you even have them as homepages. I, for one, am using Google as a starting page since I can't remember. They've been reliable all the time and safe searches are just the best thing that can happen. You can't get malware when using Google, or Yahoo or MSN, because it won't let you. But now, things are a bit different, as a new type of malware has just popped up.

So, what's up with this new threat? Well, it's a potentially unwanted program that affects the way search engines work. It's called MyWebSearch and it's a sort of toolbar; it changes the results displayed by some search engines to redirect users to certain vendors web page, as Onrec informs. So, this is a pretty serious issue, you think that you are searching computer security news and the first site that pops up might be some malware infected site. Many of you will say that this will not affect them, because they always read the result of the search before clicking. Well, what if the site only describes itself in a few words and it may seem like something you needed?

For example, if I were a hacker that took advantage of this malware, I'd name my site "allyouneedforum" and use a site description like "If you need something and people on the forum can't tell you how to get it, then it doesn't exist". Surely, a lot of people would be tempted to click on that link. And I've never been a hacker in my life and this just came to me a few seconds ago, so think what a criminal mind could think up. You might look at such threats and ignore them, but trust me, they're as serious as they can get. It's like walking through the woods and you see a sign up side down and instead of the cabin, you reach the bear's lair. It really is the same thing, because the Internet is an insecure place and you have no idea what malware lurks around.

In any case, my advice is to avoid installing "MyWebSearch" on your PC, because you can never know where a distorted search could take you.