BitGuard
Posted: October 2, 2013
Threat Metric
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.
Ranking: | 9,990 |
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Threat Level: | 2/10 |
Infected PCs: | 3,471 |
First Seen: | October 2, 2013 |
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Last Seen: | September 19, 2023 |
OS(es) Affected: | Windows |
BitGuard (which should be distinguished from BT Guard, a similarly-named, but unrelated program that includes proxy features popular among torrent network users) is a browser hijacker that claims to protect your browser from compromised sites or unwanted changes while also implementing a few unwanted changes of its own. By hijacking your browser's homepage, hijacking your browser's default search engine and then preventing you from reversing any of these changes, BitGuard reveals its real purpose as a browser hijacker.
BitGuard: the Guard with Its Own Interests at Heart
With no obvious marketing campaign or company behind its distribution, BitGuard shows all the obvious signs of being a PUP that may claim to protect your browser, but is unlikely to offer any real security advantages. Even ignoring these factors, BitGuard has shown numerous negative traits in malware researchers' analyses, including:
- Preventing itself from being uninstalled through the Windows Control Panel. This function, it should be stressed, is a deliberate blocking of your ability to remove BitGuard, rather than a failure to remove all of its components during the uninstall process.
- Resetting various Web browsers' homepages and default search engines to unwanted websites, such as search sites with poor reputations.
- Blocking any further changes to the above settings, regardless of whether they're implemented by other programs or the PC's user.
When combined, these traits turn BitGuard into nothing more than a browser hijacker that pretends to help your browser's security – when BitGuard's real functions merely are to take you to sites that can't acquire traffic through consensual methods. Accordingly, malware researchers have classified BitGuard as a low-level PC threat that should be removed from your computer since there's no reason why a reliable browser add-on ever would need to block you from removing BitGuard.
Stopping Your Web Browser from Being Bitten by BitGuard
In the extremely unlikely case that BitGuard does provide some security benefits to your browser, malware researchers still must urge you to delete BitGuard ASAP, due to the inherent security problems in its search engine and homepage-hijacking functions. While you will not be able to remove BitGuard through your Control Panel, which would suffice for a benign application, anti-malware software can be entrusted with the job of deleting BitGuard without many expected difficulties. Extra steps like booting into Safe Mode or restarting through peripheral devices are optional, but can be useful for disabling BitGuard while you uninstall BitGuard.
BitGuard uses non-consensual methods of installing itself, such as concealed software bundles and installer files that are mislabeled intentionally. Although you can't trust BitGuard to announce its installation during the process, making good use of anti-malware tools and browsing the Web with all relevant safety habits in the forefront of your mind may keep your PC far from the most likely sources of a BitGuard infection. In the worst cases, anti-malware products with active defensive features should be able to block BitGuard during the actual installation process, which malware experts can suggest as a last ditch defense.
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