Movie Mode

Posted: March 11, 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.

Threat Level:	2/10
Infected PCs:	4,082

First Seen:	March 11, 2014
Last Seen:	March 30, 2024
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

Movie Mode is adware that offers a background-dimming feature for viewing movies as a justification for inserting new advertisements into your Web-surfing experience. Because advertisements displayed through adware have tendencies to harm either the security or basic performance of the affected browser, malware researchers would recommend looking elsewhere for video-improving add-ons. Because of the dangers of unwanted effects for your browser from Movie Mode's being deleted inappropriately, you also may wish to consider using professional anti-adware products for removing Movie Mode and all similar add-ons.

Movie Mode: a New Mode for Advertising

Movie Mode is an add-on for Chrome, Internet Explorer and Firefox, and justifies its existence by providing the ability to 'dim' the background elements around a Web-based movie player. Chrome users might note that this is remarkably similar to the more popular, and more broadly functional Turn Off the Lights extension. However, unlike Turn Off the Lights, Movie Mode feels that its more limited feature set is ample justification for providing another function: browser advertisements.

As per its overly lengthy Terms of Use agreement, Movie Mode advertisements may consist of the following:

Graphical banner advertisements.
Keyword-based advertising links.
Text advertisements.
Pop-up windows.
Interstitial advertising Web pages that load while you attempt to navigate to another website.

Other types of advertisements also are permitted, inclusively, although malware researchers have not seen Movie Mode making use of all of these possibilities. While Movie Mode does claim to vet its advertising partners for appropriate, relevant and safe content, the minor nature of its beneficial features, combined with the potentially substantial drawbacks of constant advertisements, make its tradeoffs highly questionable.

Turning Your Web Browser's Lights Back On

The advertisements used by Movie Mode and other adware programs may be responsible for worsened browser stability, slow website loading times or even contact with other PC threats of a far more serious nature than Movie Mode. Keeping these problems in mind, along with the simple fact that alternatives are available without any of these disadvantages, malware researchers find it impossible to recommend anything other than removing Movie Mode from your browser.

Whenever removing adware is called for, using dedicated, high-quality anti-adware scanners will provide the most comprehensive deletion of the guilty application and its accompanying browser symptoms. Although it may be tempting to modify your browser to one unaffected by Movie Mode, allowing unwanted software to clutter your computer constitutes both a bad computer maintenance habit and a security weakness that malware researchers would advise you to divest yourself of in rapid order. At this time, Movie Mode has not been on browsers designed for non-Windows machines, though you may see similar add-ons with advertising-based functions for popular alternatives like Linux and Mac OS X.

Aliases

not-a-virus:AdWare.Win32.SaMon [Ikarus]Generic PUA MM [Sophos]Adware.Plugin.173 [DrWeb]not-a-virus:AdWare.Win32.SaMon.a [Kaspersky]Artemis!1ADB3655F931 [McAfee]MalSign.GenTec.44F [AVG]Adware.Plugin.175 [DrWeb]ApplicUnwnt [Comodo]Artemis!7F0589634E2D [McAfee]

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:

%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\MovieMode\up\2.6.78\MovieMode64.exe

File name: MovieMode64.exe
Size: 151.26 KB (151260 bytes)
MD5: ed2297b3caf653abb28ca4e138b94672
Detection count: 42
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\MovieMode\up\2.6.78
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: April 23, 2014

%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\MovieMode\MovieMode.exe

File name: MovieMode.exe
Size: 152.72 KB (152720 bytes)
MD5: 07d4e52b52850673ee3c80484f29bf54
Detection count: 42
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\MovieMode
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: April 23, 2014

%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\MovieMode\MovieModeService.exe

File name: MovieModeService.exe
Size: 66.7 KB (66704 bytes)
MD5: 75ded4b25ddc188328841d9cf2201031
Detection count: 41
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\MovieMode
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: April 23, 2014

More files

Registry Modifications

The following newly produced Registry Values are:

Regexp file mask%WINDIR%\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\MovieMode[RANDOM CHARACTERS]%WINDIR%\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\MovieMode[RANDOM CHARACTERS]%WINDIR%\SysWOW64\MovieMode[RANDOM CHARACTERS].dllHKEY..\..\..\..{RegistryKeys}SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Tracing\MovieMode_RASAPI32SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Tracing\MovieMode_RASMANCSSOFTWARE\Microsoft\Tracing\MovieModeService_RASAPI32SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Tracing\MovieModeService_RASMANCSSOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Tracing\MovieMode_RASAPI32SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Tracing\MovieMode_RASMANCSSOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Tracing\MovieModeService_RASAPI32SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Tracing\MovieModeService_RASMANCSSYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\MovieModeSYSTEM\ControlSet002\services\MovieModeSYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\MovieModeHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\[APPLICATION]\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall..{Uninstaller}MovieMode

Additional Information

The following directories were created:

%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\MovieMode%LOCALAPPDATA%\MovieMode