Playtopus
Posted: June 1, 2013
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.
| 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.dllSize: 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.dllSize: 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.dllSize: 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
HKEY..\..\..\..{RegistryKeys}Software\MOZILLA\FIREFOX\EXTENSIONS\ptff@playtopus.com
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