Search Deals

Posted: July 11, 2013

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.

Ranking:	6,915
Threat Level:	2/10
Infected PCs:	1,063

First Seen:	July 11, 2013
Last Seen:	October 13, 2023
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

Search Deals is an adware program most well-known for its efforts at injecting additional advertising content into your Web searches. While Search Deals is marketed as an online shopping accessory, SpywareRemove.com malware experts have found that Search Deals's overall characteristics – including its lack of customization, advertisement-disabling options or appropriate removal methods – pertain more to that of malicious software than to the traits of a genuinely useful browser add-on. Advertisements affiliated with Search Deals are unlikely to be very serious security problems, but removing Search Deals with a decent anti-malware program still is recommended for the sake of maintaining the overall security and control of your Web-browsing experience.

Search Deals: the Deals that Keep Coming Even When You'd Rather They Cease

The overly enthused marketing surrounded Search Deals proclaims Search Deals an incredible tool for enhancing your normal search results with good shopping bargains while not hijacking your search engine of choice – a common problem with many types of poorly-disguised browser hijackers and undesirable toolbars. While Search Deals is genuine in the sense that Search Deals does provide some bargain-based advertisements and doesn't prevent you from using whatever browser you prefer, its main function simply appears indistinguishable from that of any other type of adware: creating advertisements and displaying them in your browser without any easy way for you to disable them.

SpywareRemove.com malware researchers haven't found any cases of Search Deals's advertisements proving harmful to the compromised PC, but do warn that Search Deals's advertisement-injection techniques alters the Web pages of search sites as they're loaded – a technique that also can be used for other attacks. Even more of a concern than that is the fact that Search Deals doesn't allow you to disable its advertisements or remove Search Deals easily, which usually is a clear warning sign of Search Deals being designed without your interests, safety or privacy as priorities. Although most PC security companies don't currently categorize Search Deals as malware, the uninstallation difficulties related to Search Deals help to classify Search Deals as an adware program, rather than just a Potentially Unwanted Program with some mildly undesirable side effects.

Being the Price Slasher to Search Deals – Because Needless Advertisements are Too High a Price to Pay

Advertisements from Search Deals are not likely to be very harmful to your computer, although SpywareRemove.com malware researchers don't recommend browsing them without using all appropriate Web security features. However, advertisement-displaying add-ons that fail to remove or disable themselves upon request always should be deleted with appropriate haste – and anti-malware software is recommended for making sure that deleting Search Deals truly removes all of its components.

Symptoms of a Search Deals infection are very easily identifiable – since Search Deals clearly marks its advertisements whenever you search sites like eBay or Google. Regardless of that, Search Deals infections may also be included along with other PC threats that don't have any symptoms for you to detect. Anti-malware scans for removing Search Deals, therefore, also should be complete enough to detect any other malware that may be installed.

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:

SearchDeals.exe

File name: SearchDeals.exe
Size: 1.44 MB (1448992 bytes)
MD5: 048730701efa845f6d5137ceb741772e
Detection count: 94
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: July 11, 2013

Registry Modifications

The following newly produced Registry Values are:

HKEY..\..\..\..{RegistryKeys}Software\Mozilla\Firefox\Extensions\info@searchdealsapp.com

Additional Information

The following directories were created:

%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Search Deals%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\SearchDeals%ProgramFiles%\SearchDeals%ProgramFiles(x86)%\SearchDeals

The following URL's were detected:

Search deals