Swirlz Toolbar

Posted: December 2, 2013

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:	201

First Seen:	December 2, 2013
Last Seen:	January 17, 2023
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

The Swirlz Toolbar is a browser hijacker used to promote Conduit.com, a search site that uses similar toolbars as its primary means of getting traffic. With its installation tending to be ones that don't ask for your permission before modifying your browser, the Swirlz Toolbar usually will be an unwelcome guest that redirects your searches away from intended search engines, and often is installed along with other Potentially Unwanted Programs. Most PUPs should be deleted without any hesitation, and malware researchers recommend the same for the Swirlz Toolbar, which should be deleted with anti-malware tools able to detect any other unwanted software that could have been installed along with the Swirlz Toolbar.

Swirling Your Browser Down to Conduit

If the Swirlz Toolbar can be summarized as a tidal force relentlessly dragging your browser down to a central point, Conduit.com can be said to be the eye of that whirlpool. Conduit.com has come under extended previous analysis by malware researchers as a consequence of its toolbar-oriented business model, which employs regular 'new' browser add-ons that hijack Web searches and redirect them to that website. Although Conduit.com isn't automatically threatening in the same way that a hacked site or a malware site would be, the fact that the Swirlz Toolbar prevents you from controlling your own search engine is a legitimate security issue.

Other than its search hijacks and a few general buttons to other sites, the Swirlz Toolbar doesn't have any noteworthy features on offer. Despite being a newer variant of a Conduit.com search hijacker, the Swirlz Toolbar also is quite similar to other efforts within the same 'family' such as the Energy Community Toolbar, the Systweak Toolbar, the Crizbuzz Toolbar, the shARES Toolbar, the Mini001 Toolbar, the MySavings Toolbar and the Muvic Toolbar. Although the Swirlz Toolbar is ultimately considered a PUP instead of a threat, the Swirlz Toolbar doesn't have any meaningful features for your benefit and should be considered a net drawback to your PC's Web-browsing safety.

Pulling Away from a Browser-Ensnaring Current

Even when, unlike a Swirlz Toolbar, they have meaningful positive functions, malware researchers find that allowing third parties to control the sites your browser loads always to be terrible ideas for your computer's safety. Although the distribution methods in use by Swirlz Toolbars currently are unidentified, software bundles shown through torrent networks and free software sites often are at fault for these low-level PC threats. Files sources that aren't implicitly trustworthy always should be avoided, or, if that's not possible, verified by appropriate file-scanning utilities that can check for the potential of a Swirlz Toolbar-installing bundle.

Removing the Swirlz Toolbar through appropriate security tools such as an anti-malware scanner, also should remove any side effects on your Web browsers, such as search engine redirects. On the other hand, malware experts find it ineffective to try to remove the Swirlz Toolbar and other Conduit toolbars by way of the Control Panel or other standard software-uninstallation techniques – since these solutions tend to result in incomplete deletions that don't attend to the browser-based symptoms.

Technical Details

Registry Modifications

The following newly produced Registry Values are:

HKEY..\..\..\..{RegistryKeys}Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Approved Extensions\{4cb3c467-0d72-44e6-9237-750b9b8b5ac9}SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\{4cb3c467-0d72-44e6-9237-750b9b8b5ac9}Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\URLSearchHooks\{4cb3c467-0d72-44e6-9237-750b9b8b5ac9}SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\{4cb3c467-0d72-44e6-9237-750b9b8b5ac9}