Vi-view.com

Posted: April 29, 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.

Ranking:	2,924
Threat Level:	5/10
Infected PCs:	26,538

First Seen:	April 29, 2014
Last Seen:	October 17, 2023
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

Vi-view.com is a website devoted to an image-viewing utility that malware experts would consider harmless if Vi-view.com weren't for its tendency to hijack your Web browser. Redirects to Vi-view.com tend to promote its search engine, which uses results 'borrowed' from other search engines. Although there only are minor security risks tied to Vi-view.com, there are few benefits to its software that are unavailable from more reputable competitors, and malware experts especially recommend avoiding products that take control of your Web browser's settings in this fashion.

A Clear View of the Troubles with Vi-view.com

Vi-view.com offers an image viewer and manager that also has an additional catch: Vi-view.com may modify your browser's settings to promote its own 'search engine.' This sub-domain of Vi-view.com provides results from other, legitimate search sites, albeit with the possibility of Vi-view.com including advertisements or other, unwanted results along with the legitimate links. Malware researchers particularly found Vi-view.com hijacks to modify the PC user's homepage settings and search engine settings, although other options (such as being redirected to Vi-view.com from a URL error page or a new tab) also are highly possible.

Due to these unnecessary, and difficult to justify browser changes, Vi-view.com's Vi-View Image Viewer is rated as a Potentially Unwanted Program. A small number of PC security companies also have rated the Vi-view.com Web domain as potentially threatening, although malware researchers have found no hazardous content on Vi-view.com that would corroborate those claims, so far. In spite of that, extended contact with sites that have no problems with subverting your control over your Web browser is not in the best interest of your PC's safety.

Climbing Down from a Bad View of a Browser Hijacker

Despite the sleekness and apparent harmlessness of its image viewer, Vi-view.com is relatively simple to identify as just another website providing a bare minimum of excuse features to let Vi-view.com redirect your traffic to sites profiting Vi-view.com. If you've installed Vi-view.com's product or are experiences redirects to Vi-view.com, you should use PC security software to restore your browser's normal behavior and remove the associated browser hijacker.

Alternate means of dealing with Vi-view.com hijackers, such as changing to a browser not redirecting to Vi-view.com, will not remove the software that is responsible for these changes. Whenever possible, getting to the root of browser problems like pop-up advertisements or hijacked homepages should be considered before suppressing or working around the symptoms. Even a Potentially Unwanted Program like Vi-view.com's product may become a long-term security problem if ignored for long enough – especially on an unprotected PC. The brands of browser hijacked for promoting Vi-view.com search results have yet to be confirmed by malware researchers. However, Windows browsers typically are more at risk than non-Windows ones, albeit not exclusively so.

Technical Details

Registry Modifications

The following newly produced Registry Values are:

Regexp file mask%PROGRAMFILES%\Mozilla Firefox\browser\searchplugins\vi-view.xml%PROGRAMFILES(x86)%\Mozilla Firefox\browser\searchplugins\vi-view.xmlHKEY..\..\..\..{RegistryKeys}Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\DOMStorage\vi-view.comSOFTWARE\vi-viewSoftwareSOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\vi-viewSoftwareHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\[APPLICATION]\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall..{Uninstaller}vi-view uninstall

Additional Information

The following directories were created:

%APPDATA%\ViView%AppData%\vi-view%PROGRAMFILES%\ViView%PROGRAMFILES(x86)%\ViView

The following URL's were detected:

myhome.vi-view.commystart.vi-view.comsearches.vi-view.com