WebConnect

Posted: August 27, 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.

Ranking:	8,138
Threat Level:	2/10
Infected PCs:	19,470

First Seen:	August 27, 2013
Last Seen:	March 10, 2025
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

Web Connect or WebConnect is adware that uses its supposed features for improving your Web-searching activities as excuses to display advertisements and monitor your browser behavior. Like similar adware programs such as Rolimno, SpywareRemove.com malware experts can find no real justification for not removing Web Connect from your PC – since its advantages are trivial and its drawbacks as related to your ability to control what content your browsers load are substantial. Despite being a program with a poor ratio of positive to negative features, Web Connect is not categorized as a Trojan or high-level PC threat, and if you remove Web Connect with appropriate security tools, your PC shouldn't be any worse for the wear after a brief Web Connect infection.

Web Connect: Connecting Your Browser to All the Advertisements You Never Wanted

Web Connect is adware that pretends to offer Web search-related features for helping you find new content, but most of its functions focus on displaying advertisement in your browser – even if you don't want them there. As a program that may be installed in multiple browsers, in some cases, at the same time, Web Connect is happy to ignore your default browser settings and will display its injected advertisements even if you have an advertisement-blocking feature enabled. Malware experts also immediately verified Web Connect's tracking of its users browser habits, allowing Web Connect to monitor which sites are visited, what search terms are used and similar information. While the information Web Connect gathers is non-confidential, this function still may be considered needlessly invasive and, since Web Connect takes up system resources continuously, Web Connect also may cause your browser to have poor performance.

Advertisements related to Web Connect are not automatically guaranteed to harm you or your PC, but the advertisement from Web Connect and similar adware programs often are attack vectors for multiple types of PC threats. The latter may include phishing attacks that gather your personal information through fraudulent requests (such as fake polls) and drive-by-downloads that try to install more unwanted and possibly unsafe software. SpywareRemove.com malware experts recommend minimizing any interaction with Web Connect advertisement until you can get around to removing Web Connect completely from your browser.

The Quick Way to Disconnect Your Web Browser from Web Connect's Advertisements

Similar to many other adware programs that use flimsy excuses of search-related features for injecting advertisement into your browser, Web Connect markets itself as a useful application but is oddly difficult to uninstall, which is a typical characteristic of PUPs, adware, browser hijackers and similar kinds of low-level PC threats. SpywareRemove.com malware research team considers the appropriate application of reliable anti-malware programs to be the simplest and safest way to remove Web Connect, particularly since Web Connect also may attend to any related Trojans that may be responsible for the Web Connect infection's compromise of your PC.

Malicious websites are the major infection vectors for Web Connect, which most likely uses drive-by-downloads and related PC threats to install itself without attaining the victim's permission. SpywareRemove.com malware researchers find a solid combination of anti-malware tools, browser security features and common sense about Web-surfing habits to be sufficient defenses against these types of attacks.

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:

%PROGRAMFILES%\WebConnect\updateWebConnect.exe

File name: updateWebConnect.exe
Size: 199.97 KB (199976 bytes)
MD5: 8b50161c6c0e21c8ee2efefb52153cc5
Detection count: 65
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: %PROGRAMFILES%\WebConnect
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: August 27, 2013

Registry Modifications

The following newly produced Registry Values are:

CLSID{2316c625-b487-4410-a1a5-ff040b65245f}{7C28CEF1-A4A6-4B6A-8B97-C44F1267753C}{D8CAF2DF-52D3-42CF-9DDB-F4FF828DB4F8}HKEY..\..\..\..{RegistryKeys}SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Tracing\updateWebConnect_RASAPI32SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Tracing\updateWebConnect_RASMANCSSOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Browser Helper Objects\{2316c625-b487-4410-a1a5-ff040b65245f}Software\WebConnectSOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Browser Helper Objects\{2316c625-b487-4410-a1a5-ff040b65245f}SYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\eventlog\Application\Update WebConnectSYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\Update WebConnectSYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog\Application\Update WebConnectSYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Update WebConnectHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\[APPLICATION]\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall..{Uninstaller}WebConnect

Additional Information

The following directories were created:

%ProgramFiles%\WebConnect%ProgramFiles(x86)%\WebConnect