Ken's Corner
Bing!
It’s morning; the birds are much too loud and the sky is that perfect shade of gray that sucks out the last ounce of energy you’ve got before you scarcely get out of bed. You drag yourself into the kitchen for the first cup of coffee and shuffle over to the computer.
As that first wonderful jolt of caffeine starts working its way into your system, you decide to check and see what new crisis in the news will grab the headlines this week. You try to open your Google browser but… you can’t. It’s not coming up. Instead, a Bing search bar takes up your screen, and it seems like it doesn’t want to take you where you want to go.
You bring up your computer settings and confirm Google is your default browser. You try to reset it just to be sure and you receive a message from your computer that you need permission from your administrator to make that change. Unless this is happening to you at work, you ARE the administrator. Better get another cup of coffee.
Browser hijacker programs aren’t new, but this one is particularly fresh and irritating. Truthfully, I picked this piece of malware myself in November last year. The Bing redirect malware seems innocent enough: Bing is a viable browser that sees a fair amount of use. This time, the malware in your system has a bigger influence on where your web browsing goes than you do.
Bing redirect will take you to some pretty suspicious websites while it also shows you a much larger number of pop-ups than you would normally get. Your search results will be less legitimate and usually sponsored by shady websites to have the program drop you at their door. If you’re not careful, you’ll have a lot more malware to worry about than just Bing redirect.
If this happens to you, shut your system down and get it into repairs quickly as it’s fairly tricky to remove. A strong anti-virus program can keep it out of your system. Don’t count on a free anti-virus for protection, as malware like this can zip through them before your computer knows what hit it. Connecting Point’s EDR is tailor-made for this.
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- Written by: CPCC & IVNet
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