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Arcade Yum Ads

Posted: September 23, 2014

Threat Metric

Ranking: 7,044
Threat Level: 2/10
Infected PCs: 5,520
First Seen: September 23, 2014
Last Seen: October 11, 2023
OS(es) Affected: Windows


The Arcade Yum Ads is an adware program that modifies Web pages loaded into your browser to display additional advertising links. While the Arcade Yum Ads claims to offer a means of opting out of its advertisements, most users have issues with doing so or removing the Arcade Yum Ads. Any adware program may impact your browser's security or performance negatively, and malware experts find it advantageous to uninstall the Arcade Yum Ads through the dutiful use of appropriate anti-adware tools.

When Games Leave the Taste of Advertisements in Your Mouth

As per the usual for adware and other, equally unwanted applications, the Arcade Yum Ads is distributed in software bundles, particularly arcadeyum.com game downloads. While arcadeyum.com does provide the gaming content its marketing promotes, it leaves unmentioned the fact that it also installs the Arcade Yum Ads extension to your Chrome or Firefox Web browser. Meanwhile, the site's recommended uninstall routine for the Arcade Yum Ads typically has failed at removing the Arcade Yum Ads from the PCs of its unwilling users.

As a campaign unto itself, the Arcade Yum Ads was seen in wide distribution only this year. Despite the brevity of its lifespan, the Arcade Yum Ads' meaningful functions show few differences from the other adware programs that malware researchers already are familiar with from past analyses. The Arcade Yum Ads modifies HTML content by injecting Web links into the text, frequently to promote digital coupons and other shopping-themed third party content. Currently, there is no evidence of the Arcade Yum Ads using its advertisements to deliver hostile content, but adware advertisements may occasionally be compromised by other PC threats. Since they modify a Web page in unintended ways, the injected advertisements also may harm legibility or accessibility for text-heavy websites.

Choosing the Flavor of Your Online Gaming

The Arcade Yum Ads isn't threatening, but its classification as a PUP means that allowing the Arcade Yum Ads to remain on your PC may put the system at risk for a variety of performance and security issues. Instead of following the removal instructions at the Arcade Yum Ads' website, malware researchers recommend thoroughly deleting the Arcade Yum Ads with PC security products that specialize in removing PUPs, such as adware and toolbars. Other methods of avoiding the Arcade Yum Ads' advertising links, such as changing your Web browser, may be effective for that specific purpose but will not necessary delete the software responsible for the advertisements.

Few PC security institutions have categorized the Arcade Yum Ads' website as threatening, and malware researchers have found no indications that arcadeyum.com uses exploits or other attacks that could install software automatically. Unfortunately, the person at the keyboard often is the primary culprit behind the installation of the Arcade Yum Ads, which makes a profit by tempting PC users with (technically accurate) promises of free games.

Aliases

Trojan-Downloader [Ikarus]Artemis!19C71380E3C3 [McAfee]Artemis [McAfee-GW-Edition]Arcade Yum [Sophos]

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:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ArcadeYum\ArcadeYumVersionControl.exe File name: ArcadeYumVersionControl.exe
Size: 38.78 KB (38784 bytes)
MD5: a750b0158c46b05fee9bd83519d3e821
Detection count: 211
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ArcadeYum\ArcadeYumVersionControl.exe
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: December 10, 2022
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ArcadeYum\ArcadeYumIEHelper.dll File name: ArcadeYumIEHelper.dll
Size: 204.67 KB (204672 bytes)
MD5: f334008b6c195e818eee62026ce8238f
Detection count: 176
File type: Dynamic link library
Mime Type: unknown/dll
Path: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ArcadeYum\ArcadeYumIEHelper.dll
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: December 10, 2022
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ArcadeYum\ArcadeYumVersionControl.exe File name: ArcadeYumVersionControl.exe
Size: 39.29 KB (39296 bytes)
MD5: a75e4cdbb19f1436e65e1dae3222ea37
Detection count: 70
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ArcadeYum\ArcadeYumVersionControl.exe
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: June 2, 2022
C:\Users\<username>\Desktop\Geek Squad Data Transfer\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ArcadeYum\ArcadeYumVersionControl.exe File name: ArcadeYumVersionControl.exe
Size: 37.76 KB (37760 bytes)
MD5: 19c71380e3c34b995e2c67da7e9ee55c
Detection count: 59
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: C:\Users\<username>\Desktop\Geek Squad Data Transfer\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ArcadeYum\ArcadeYumVersionControl.exe
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: February 3, 2023
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ArcadeYum\ArcadeYumVersionControl.exe File name: ArcadeYumVersionControl.exe
Size: 37.24 KB (37248 bytes)
MD5: 5aeee7c16eab34eba7aca67fedcbc88c
Detection count: 56
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ArcadeYum\ArcadeYumVersionControl.exe
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: April 3, 2022

Registry Modifications

The following newly produced Registry Values are:

HKEY..\..\..\..{RegistryKeys}Software\AppDataLow\Software\ArcadeYumSOFTWARE\Microsoft\Tracing\ArcadeYum_RASAPI32SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Tracing\ArcadeYum_RASMANCSSOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Tracing\ArcadeYum_RASAPI32SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Tracing\ArcadeYum_RASMANCSHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\[APPLICATION]\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall..{Uninstaller}ArcadeYum

Additional Information

The following directories were created:
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\ArcadeYum%LOCALAPPDATA%\ArcadeYum%PROGRAMFILES%\ArcadeYum%PROGRAMFILES(x86)%\ArcadeYum%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\ArcadeYum
The following URL's were detected:
arcadeyum.com
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