Pierluigi Paganini
April 25, 2016
Security Experts at Bleeping Computer have spotted a new strain of adware, known as Faster Internet, that takes a screenshot of victims’ PCs.
Lawrence Abrams, a computer security expert at Bleeping Computer, explained in a blog post that the Adware uploads screenshot of victim’s active Windows without his permission.
“While installing some adware bundles today I ran into a particular nasty variant called Faster Internet that uploads quite a bit of information to their servers without the user’s permission. To make matters worse, it uploads a screenshot of what is currently being displayed on your computer without alerting the user.” wrote Abrams in a blog post.
‘Once installed, Faster Internet will collect information related to the hardware present on the machine and will upload it to the developers’ server. The scariest aspect of the nasty adware is that it also takes a screenshot of the active display on the victim’s machine at the time of the install and send it to the developer.
Users will never be notified that the adware is taking a screenshot of their desktop, this is a serious threat to their privacy.
What if the victim had a confidential document or password manager open?
“The problem is that when this program is installed, the user may have confidential documents, web sites, or programs open that will be now be included in the screenshot and uploaded to these scumbags.” continues Abrams. “What if the victim had a password manager open to their online bank account, or their tax return showing their social security number and address, or private images that they do not want disclosed? As nobody knows who the people behind this are and what they may do with this information, this behavior is a serious cause for concern.”
Abrams highlighted that that governments just do not take seriously this kind of threats, these malicious applications are equivalent to any other malicious code, but often their behavior is “hidden behind end user license agreements.”
“Unfortunately, the computer issues of consumers are not taken as serious as corporate concerns and thus adware companies continue to thrive. Maybe if online merchants knew how much business they lost because adware makes a potential customer’s browser unusable they would join in the fight.
I always suggest users to keep up-to-date their anti-virus solutions that are able to detect programs like Faster Internet as a threat. provider on their computers. Another possibility is to install an adblocker like AdBlock Plus.
Virus Total online scanner recognizes the program as a malware with a detection ratio of 17 of 56.
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(Security Affairs – adware, Faster Internet)
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