AdPunisher

Posted: October 2, 2014

Threat Metric

The Threat Meter is a malware assessment that SpywareRemove.com's research team is able to give every identifiable malware threat. Our Threat Meter includes several criteria based off of specific malware threats to value their severity, reach and volume. The Threat Meter is able to give you a numerical breakdown of each threat's initial Threat Level, Detection Count, Volume Count, Trend Path and Percentage Impact. The overall ranking of each threat in the Threat Meter is a basic breakdown of how all threats are ranked within our own extensive malware database. The scoring for each specific malware threat can be easily compared to other emerging threats to draw a contrast in its particular severity. The Threat Meter is a useful tool in the endeavor of seeking a solution to remove a threat or pursue additional analytical research for all types of computer users.

The following fields listed on the Threat Meter containing a specific value, are explained in detail below:

Threat Level: The threat level scale goes from 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest level of severity and 1 is the lowest level of severity. Each specific level is relative to the threat's consistent assessed behaviors collected from SpyHunter's risk assessment model.

Detection Count: The collective number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular malware threat. The detection count is calculated from infected PCs retrieved from diagnostic and scan log reports generated by SpyHunter.

Volume Count: Similar to the detection count, the Volume Count is specifically based on the number of confirmed and suspected threats infecting systems on a daily basis. High volume counts usually represent a popular threat but may or may not have infected a large number of systems. High detection count threats could lay dormant and have a low volume count. Criteria for Volume Count is relative to a daily detection count.

Trend Path: The Trend Path, utilizing an up arrow, down arrow or equal symbol, represents the level of recent movement of a particular threat. Up arrows represent an increase, down arrows represent a decline and the equal symbol represent no change to a threat's recent movement.

% Impact (Last 7 Days): This demonstrates a 7-day period change in the frequency of a malware threat infecting PCs. The percentage impact correlates directly to the current Trend Path to determine a rise or decline in the percentage.

Threat Level:	2/10
Infected PCs:	85

First Seen:	October 3, 2014
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

AdPunisher is adware for your Web browser that makes settings changes for the purpose of loading extra, potentially undesirable advertisements. Although, ironically, AdPunisher markets itself as an anti-advertising product, its users may find themselves exposed to more advertisements than otherwise by installing AdPunisher. By default, malware researchers suggest uninstalling AdPunisher, which earns the rating of a Potentially Unwanted Program best handled by standardized anti-adware utilities.

Punishing Your Browser Advertisements by Soliciting Them

AdPunisher is a self-proclaimed 'punisher' of intrusive advertisements by providing access to a user-defined block list of advertisement domains. This blacklist supposedly allows the AdPunisher base to determine for themselves which advertisements are sufficiently invasive to warrant being blocked. In a showing of impressive irony, AdPunisher also is adware, or a program that loads extra advertising content into your browser automatically. Since AdPunisher's real advertisement-blocking functions easily can be acquired from non-adware alternatives in the market, malware researchers find few reasons to encourage using AdPunisher as a favored advertisement network-blocking add-on.

AdPunisher's last confirmed development team has since moved on to other projects, and AdPunisher's distribution is estimated to be low. Despite its reduced numbers, AdPunisher still may be a potential security or performance issue for PCs that do have AdPunisher installed. Typical adware-associated hazards, not limited to AdPunisher, include:

Loss of Web-browsing privacy, as adware often monitors your Web traffic.
Poor Web-browsing performance.
Interactivity issues with Web pages modified by injected advertisements.
Exposure to threats potentially circulated throughout advertisement networks (such as the recent case of the Angler Exploit Kit installing threats via the Pirate Bay).

Removing Your Browser from an AdPunisher Hit List

In spite of its relative age, in comparison to other adware add-ons, AdPunisher does have a similar history of being difficult to uninstall. Incomplete removal of AdPunisher, which may be caused by using the Control Panel or your Web browser's default add-on removal settings, occasionally may fail to delete all of its settings changes. One of the explicit symptoms of this problem is the continual display of AdPunisher advertisements even when the AdPunisher toolbar seemingly is no longer on your browser.

Eliminating the advertisements brought by AdPunisher, as well as deleting AdPunisher, typically is most safely handled through the use of a trusted brand of anti-adware software. Closing your browser, using Safe Mode for any system scans and updating all relevant threat databases also can give your security solutions the necessary help to restore your browser to its original condition with minimal trouble.

The last known versions of AdPunisher add-ons were compatible with multiple browsers and may be in distribution with other, bundled software. The latter may display independent symptoms as Potentially Unwanted Programs, which frequently install themselves in multiples.

Technical Details

File System Modifications

Tutorials: If you wish to learn how to remove malware components manually, you can read the tutorials on how to find malware, kill unwanted processes, remove malicious DLLs and delete other harmful files. Always be sure to back up your PC before making any changes.

The following files were created in the system:

C:\ProgramData\adpunisher

File name: C:\ProgramData\adpunisher
Group: Malware file

C:\ProgramData\AdPunisher\AdPunisher.exe

File name: C:\ProgramData\AdPunisher\AdPunisher.exe
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Group: Malware file