Moonly Search

The Moonly Search is a browser hijacker that may redirect your Web searches to its website. Although the Moonly Search's site has no history of threatening behavior, there are no benefits in letting third-party software dictate the sites your browser loads. Unless you've chosen to install this software deliberately, malware experts recommend using dedicated security software for removing the Moonly Search from your browser and reverting all side effects.

The Sign of the Moon in Your Browser

The relative ease of gaining revenue through online advertisement sponsorships contrasts with the technical difficulty of creating a website that naturally solicits ad-viewing traffic equally, such as a functioning search engine. Some software and Web developers without the resources to make large-scale websites resort to mimicking popularized company services, such as Google and the Yahoo Search. However, these imitations may come with software-related risks like those that malware experts see in the Moonly Search product.

The Moonly Search's campaign begins with the Mooonly.com website, a domain whose registration date coincides with the distribution of the Moonly Search's browser-hijacking software. Web surfers browsing the site will understand the reasons for its rapid deployment implicitly, as its developers have copied almost every element of their site from Google, including redirecting traffic to Google's search results. The Moonly Search also has no noteworthy features beyond redirecting its user base's Web searches to the Mooonly.com site, with Chrome being the most affected browser to date.

Unlike any legitimate browser product, the Moonly Search does not display a Control Panel, plugin or extension entry that would let its users monitor its presence or uninstall it. Malware researchers also saw the Moonly Search campaign using steps typical of unwanted software for distribution, such as installing itself automatically while bundling its installer with other products.

Getting Back to Daylight after a Forced March to the Moonly Search

The Moonly Search is a browser hijacker created for the apparent purpose of driving advertisement-viewing revenue back to Mooonly.com's owners, and neither it nor its website may offer any features apart from redirecting the user to a modified version of Google. While malware experts would hesitate to classify such software as an actual threat, the Moonly Search is easily classifiable as being a Potentially Unwanted Programs, or PUP. Even when you install them intentionally, unwanted programs can create online security hazards, such as inciting contact with compromised advertisement servers that host threats or hoax-related content.

Although many Chrome-based search hijackers host themselves through the Chrome's Web store, malware researchers have yet to identify the mechanisms by which the Moonly Search is installing itself to new browsers. However, they can confirm that current installation strategies show no symptoms until after installation when the user may observe the redirects to the Mooonly.com site. In some cases, malfunctioning versions of the Moonly Search may provide redirects that restrict themselves to specific sub-sections of the Google's search functionality, such as the Images results.

Because Moonly Search hides all components from casual view and may use mislabeled file names, malware researchers encourage using dedicated anti-adware software for deleting the Moonly Search currently. PC users that still were experiencing symptoms of this add-on after its removal should erase temporary Web-browsing data, such as cookies, according to the browser developer's recommendations.

The Moonly Search may not be a massive threat in the same vein as most threats, but, unfortunately, it does flaunt how quickly a software developer can re-brand a typical browser-hijacking campaign as a new problem for Web surfers with almost no effort.