Shield Safe Search Hijack
Posted: May 25, 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.
Threat Level: | 8/10 |
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Infected PCs: | 15 |
First Seen: | May 26, 2015 |
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Last Seen: | June 26, 2020 |
OS(es) Affected: | Windows |
Shield Safe Search is a browser add-on developed by Tightrope Interactive. This browser plugin is advertised as a search engine alternative with an emphasis on security. Like many of its kind, Shield Safe Search is distributed by employing the controversial practice of bundling. Often, users will not even notice that additional programs crept into their computer. Shield Safe Search is compatible with the most popular Windows browsers Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Once installed, the Shield Safe Search browser add-on will immediately change both the homepage and default search engine of the browser(s). The alternatives provided by Shield Safe Search, more specifically the search engine at search.eshield.com, delivers somewhat skewed query data, favoring sponsored links and ads. However, the main selling point of Shield Safe Search is that its search engine analyzes every link and based on the level of risk, assigns them a color; green for safe, yellow for some risk and red for total avoidance. The validity of these ratings is still under question. Overall, Shield Safe Search is considered a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program) with browser hijacking capabilities. If you have Shield Safe Search on your computer, you should consider removing it.
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