Word Surfer Ads
Posted: July 17, 2015
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: | 10,471 |
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Threat Level: | 2/10 |
Infected PCs: | 7,068 |
First Seen: | July 10, 2015 |
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Last Seen: | October 6, 2023 |
OS(es) Affected: | Windows |
Word Surfer is an adware-related plugin, which may ruin your online experience with some intrusive ads. The program has very limited functionality. All it does is to allow the client to search for additional information about a particular word by highlighting it. This feature saves no more than a few seconds but comes at a rather high cost. According to the developers of Word Surfer, they need to display some ads to cover their expenses as their product is freeware. In fact, the main purpose of the adware is to create commercial content. The promise to enhance the searching process just tries to promote the installation of Word Surfer. When it reaches your PC, the suspicious add-on hooks towards all available browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. After that, it generates large amounts of pop-ups, banners, in-text ads and even interstitial ads that cover the whole site. The adware may also replace your homepage with a low-quality search engine, which displays sponsored links. The impact of these marketing materials on your web clients may be highly negative. The process of loading the ads happens thanks to the resources of your PC, and may result in speed drops. The sponsored links are not perceived as safe because they may sometimes lead to phishing sites or other dangerous platforms. If the modifications made by Word Surfer bother you, you should remove the adware immediately.
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:%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\nsk420A.tmp
File name: nsk420A.tmpSize: 1.17 MB (1172712 bytes)
MD5: 7008f657bbba3bf6625859dc4e507d67
Detection count: 66
File type: Temporary File
Mime Type: unknown/tmp
Path: %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\nsk420A.tmp
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: September 2, 2022
Registry Modifications
Regexp file mask%WINDIR%\system32\Drivers\wsafd_1_10_0_[RANDOM CHARACTERS].sys%WINDIR%\System32\Tasks\WordSurfer Auto Updater[RANDOM CHARACTERS]HKEY..\..\..\..{RegistryKeys}SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Tracing\WordSurferAutoUpdateClient_RASAPI32SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Tracing\WordSurferAutoUpdateClient_RASMANCSSOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Tracing\WordSurferAutoUpdateClient_RASAPI32SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Tracing\WordSurferAutoUpdateClient_RASMANCS
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