Home Malware Programs Adware Playtopus

Playtopus

Posted: June 1, 2013

Threat Metric

Threat Level: 1/10
Infected PCs: 54,508
First Seen: June 1, 2013
Last Seen: October 9, 2023
OS(es) Affected: Windows

Playtopus is a stubborn ad-oriented extension that may inject unwanted new ads in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. Playtopus is related to a platform for online games that you can find at Playtopus.com. This site hosts hundreds of small games that are distributed into various categories. You may find content relevant to your taste, no matter if you are a fan of the board games, driving simulators, fighting games or arcades. Some of the games are safe to play. However, others have only a desktop version, so the site suggests you download and install them. If you do so, the unwanted adware extension also may sneak in. If you find various pop-ups and banners with the slogan 'Brought by Playtopus,' but you have not visited Playtopus.com, then the adware may have entered bundled with third-party freeware. Other commercial materials that you may notice once Playtopus settles in are in-text ads, interstitial ads or embedded multimedia files. According to the majority of PC users, seeing these marketing elements all the time is an exceptionally annoying process. A significant part of the ads may be misleading or unreliable. For example, they may congratulate you on being the lucky visitor, asking you to share your email address to receive expensive rewards. As you probably suspect, there are no prizes whatsoever. Your email address may end up in marketing lists, resulting in spam. Some sponsored links by Playtopus may be involved in malvertising schemes, redirecting the unsuspecting user to corrupted Web pages. Avoiding the ads is a solution only in the short term. The adware may deteriorate the performance of your Web clients with unexpected speed drops or occasional crashes. Playtopus also may change some settings automatically, including your homepage and default search provider. Playtopus may be difficult to delete unless you are an expert, so it is advisable to perform its removal with a dedicated anti-malware solution.

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:



c:\Users\<username>\appdata\local\playtopus\updater.dll File name: updater.dll
Size: 129.98 KB (129984 bytes)
MD5: 7269d6f935bc2c0b635655633567273a
Detection count: 8,052
File type: Dynamic link library
Mime Type: unknown/dll
Path: c:\Users\<username>\appdata\local\playtopus\updater.dll
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: May 16, 2023
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Playtopus\Playtopus.dll File name: Playtopus.dll
Size: 112.64 KB (112640 bytes)
MD5: d37837a393f5a2e1cc26a74e5dd6deb8
Detection count: 103
File type: Dynamic link library
Mime Type: unknown/dll
Path: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Playtopus
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: February 10, 2014
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Playtopus\Apple\tfgky.dll File name: tfgky.dll
Size: 315.9 KB (315904 bytes)
MD5: 7f2c580444b2dc8bd371e14de0c01bf2
Detection count: 80
File type: Dynamic link library
Mime Type: unknown/dll
Path: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Playtopus\Apple
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: February 10, 2014

More files

Registry Modifications

The following newly produced Registry Values are:

HKEY..\..\..\..{RegistryKeys}Software\MOZILLA\FIREFOX\EXTENSIONS\ptff@playtopus.com

Additional Information

The following directories were created:
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\PlayTopus
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