Defru
Posted: August 20, 2014
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.
Threat Level: | 10/10 |
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Infected PCs: | 39 |
First Seen: | August 20, 2014 |
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OS(es) Affected: | Windows |
Defru is a browser hijacker that uses its Web redirects to promote the services of a premium, but fake security program known as Windows Security. PC users who bother to buy Defru's promoted software will continue to experience Web-browsing redirects to Defru's fraudulent pages, which have no purpose beyond providing revenue for its designers. The extremely visible symptoms of a suspected Defru infection always should be reacted to by using a robust anti-malware solution, which should remove Defru and, hopefully, any related changes to your Web-browser settings.
Defru: Another New Step in Fake AV Software
Although most of the major families of rogue anti-malware programs (such as WinWebSec or FakeSysdef) are on the decline, threat authors haven't abandoned these tactics wholesale. Defru is an indication of them utilizing different, browser-based attacks to achieve the same goals, rather than building entire brands of fake system scanners with semi-functional 'scans' and diverse pop-up warnings. Rather than being scamware, itself, Defru is a browser hijacker that installs itself with no visible symptoms and makes changes to the Registry and Hosts file that allow Defru to have a persistent effect on your Web browser's behavior.
Compromised Web browsers redirect from unrelated sites (especially websites related to major PC security companies) towards Defru's fake warning page, which hosts an imitation 'system scan' that pretends to find various threats on your hard drive. These results are meant to bully victims into purchasing the Defru's product, Windows Security, for slightly under five USD. Naturally, doing so doesn't provide access to a functional security program and merely wastes money and information by handing it to threat authors.
Since Defru's hijacks utilize Hosts file settings, they aren't specific to any individual browser. Malware researchers warn that Defru may affect most Windows browsers although potential compatibility with other OSes still is under investigation.
Taking the Defru Redirects out of Your Browser
While Defru is a low-level threat that has no advanced defenses, backdoor capabilities or ability to block other programs, Defru still is a threat that may endanger your PC with its browser redirects. You can combat redirects to Defru-associated pages with anti-malware utilities that can delete Defru and its file changes with no overall harm to your Web-browsing settings. The same Hosts file-based attacks also may be responsible for redirects to phishing sites or other Web-based hazards that may act against your PC in other ways.
Current evidence of Defru's campaign leads malware researchers to estimate that Defru is meant to target Russian PC users. Nonetheless, there are few restrictions that would make it difficult to retool Defru for other countries, and its means of distribution currently are unidentified. For the time being, all the standard infection vectors, including social network spam, e-mail file attachments and pirated software downloads, all should be watched for potential installers of Defru and similar PC threats.
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