Let us delve into the definition of “not-a-virus,” what kind of applications trigger the warning, and what should you do about those applications. Broadly speaking, Not-a-virus is defined as an application that does not cause harmful effects or is indeed not a malicious program on your computer or device. Not-a-virus is a specific detection used by Kaspersky Antivirus, Kaspersky Internet Security and other antivirus products to indicate and detect a Potentially Unwanted Program. A potentially unwanted application is a program that contains adware, installs toolbars or has other unclear objectives. 2.0 Why Classification as Not-a-virus AV providers classify these application as “not-a-virus” because they are not malicious by nature, so they cannot be called viruses. 3.0 Types of classification Ideally “not-a-virus” is associated with two types of applications; adware and riskware. 3.1 What is adware? Adware is software with advertising material, or advertising-supported software, that generates revenue for its developer by automatically generating online advertisements in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the user during the installation process. The software may generate two types of revenue: one is for the display of the advertisement and another on a "pay-per-click" basis, if the user clicks on the advertisement. The software may implement advertisements in a variety of ways, including a static box display, a banner display, full screen, a video, pop-up ad or in some other form. Some software developers offer their software free of charge, and rely on revenue from advertising to recoup their expenses and generate income. Some also offer a version of the software at a fee without advertising. Adware technically is not malicious, but there is nothing good about it, either. All hell may break loose when a few dozen adware applications sneak onto a computer and start to compete with one another for resources. That said, adware is legitimate software that is installed on computers with the formal consent of users — the catch is, users may not notice a preselected check box during the installation of another application, and thus agree to install adware to show targeted contextual advertising, or all of the above. 4.0 The Advent of adware In 1992, adware was software given away for free that included an advertisement for other products sold by the same author. There was no connection to the Internet to get ads–this was before the WWW explosion, and the advertisements were just a handful of graphics or a few paragraphs of text that were included with the software. By 1998, adware’s definition had changed. It became a free product that downloaded advertisements through an internet connection from a third-party ad agency, displayed the ads in the same window as the program, paid the author on the basis of how many ads were displayed, and the ads never appeared by themselves. Most authors found that adware, as it existed then, didn’t pay well enough to support additional program development. 2000 was when things changed. Venture capital entered adware, in a big way. Within the shareware industry, authors saw big money devoted to drawing products and authors away from the free download of a try-before-you-buy product, attempting to convince authors that being paid a few cents for every download of a product with advertising sponsors was more profitable as a marketing model than being paid $30 for a product license. At the industry convention that year, authors were told by one startup exhibitor that they could earn a $17,500 bonus for incorporating a new component into their products and offering them for free download. That component would add a text-only advertisement in the title bar of Internet Explorer, running anytime that Internet Explorer was running, whether the free product was running or not. That was the turning point, when the advertisements were no longer linked to the free software. That particular experiment didn’t do much; a good time was had by all at the party and casino night, but only a handful of authors signed up, and the venture company had disappeared. Now, adware shows up as free software that will put a convenient tool in your taskbar to do a task for you, possibly storing passwords, putting smiley faces in email, or weather reports on the desktop, or as a free screen-saver of the month. 4.2 What is riskware?Riskware is a slightly different matter. Riskware is a word used to describe software whose installation and execution poses a possible yet not definite risk to a host computer. Applications of this type were initially created as useful tools, and they may be used on a computer for their stated purposes. But quite often, malefactors install riskware — certainly without the user’s knowledge — to pursue their own goals. You can check out the full list of application types that we consider riskware here. Riskware can include the following types of programs that may be commonly used for legitimate purposes: · Remote administration utilities · IRC clients · Dialer programs · File downloaders · Software for monitoring computer activity · Password management utilities · Internet server services – such as FTP, web, proxy and telnet These programs are not designed to be malicious – but they do have functions that can be used for malicious purposes. 5.0 Common symptoms of Adware · Advertising banners are injected with the web pages that you are visiting. · Random web page text is turned into hyperlinks. · Browser popups appear which recommend fake updates or other software. · Other unwanted adware programs might get installed without the user’s knowledge. 6.0 Risk The lines for not-a-virus classification (adware and riskware) are even being blended into virus and trojan territory. Not-a-virus exhibit plenty of malicious traits, such as rootkit capabilities to hook deep into the operating system, browser hijacking, and in general just interfering with the user experience. Furthermore it can be used by criminals for damaging your or personal data. 6.1 How Adware can impact youOther than displaying advertisements and collecting data, Adware doesn’t generally make its presence known. Usually, there will be no signs of the program in your computer’s system tray – and no indication in your program menu that files have been installed on your machine. There are two main ways in which Adware can get onto your computer:
6.2 How Riskware can impact youWith so many legitimate programs that malicious users can employ for illicit purposes, it can be difficult for users to decide which programs represent a risk. For example, remote administration programs are often used by systems administrators and helpdesks for diagnosing and resolving problems that arise on a user’s computer. However, if such a program has been installed on your computer by a malicious user – without your knowledge – that user will have remote access to your computer. With full control over your machine, the malicious user will be able to use your computer in virtually any way they wish.
· Riskware can include any of the following behaviours:
7.0 Conclusion In conclusion, not-a-virus are legal software that has come to stay. 8.0 Recommendation Browser extension includes various features that will modify the default or custom settings of the browser including the home page, search settings and in some cases will modify Internet Explorer’s load time threshold. We recommend the following; 1. Place a lock file within Firefox to prevent competing software from changing its settings as well as disable the browser’s content security policy in other to allow for cross site scripting of plugin. 2. You should always pay attention when installing software because often, a software installer includes optional installs. 3. Always opt for the custom installation and deselect anything that is not familiar, especially optional software that you never wanted to download and install in the first place. It goes without saying that you should not install software that you don’t trust. 4. Informational window displaying the data about a detected not-a-virus should be deleted upon confirmation of its legitimacy. Reference 1. Spyware, Adware and Malware — Advice for networks and network users". RM Education. Retrieved 4 December 2012. [Adware] tend[s] to be more of an irritant than do actual damage to your system, but [is] an unwanted presence nonetheless. 2.https://web.archive.org/web/20120917022453/http://www.ftc.gov/os/comments/spyware/040318assocofsharewareproff.pdf |
