Types of Adware: DollarRevenue
Anyone who perceives adware as just annoying software that occasionally displays advertisements is totally in the dark. These programs have been known to deliver pop-up advertisements at rapid-fire speed, so many at once that surfing the web is almost impossible. Furthermore, adware often spies on your every movement, sending that data along with information about your other applications to remote locations. This program is usually installed without your knowledge or consent. In many cases, a user unknowingly installs it themselves.
What is DollarRevenue?
When first discovered, DollarRevenue was thought to be just an annoying piece of adware. It was said to contain no dangerous payload and considered a low-risk treat. Many security experts described it as potentially unwanted software that came bundled with other ad-supported products. The program was also known to install itself with other applications and download additional advertising components from the internet. Failure to read the EULA (End-User License) caused many people to unknowingly download and install the program.
More recently, DollarRevenue was reclassified as a Trojan horse due to its deceptive practices. It was reported to purport itself as a file or program that appeared wanted or beneficial. DollarRevenue was not only bundled with freeware products but also infected via security exploitation, email attachments, peer-to-peer networks, compromised web pages and IRC (Internet Chat Relay). This program may download hundreds of executable files from the Dollar Revenue web server with names such as "KEYBOARD.EXE" and "MOUSEPAD4.EXE". DollarRevenue downloads various adware and Trojan files including the following:
• Adware-DCToolbar
• Adware-DFC
• AdwareLook2ME
• Adware-SurfSideKick
• Adware-Zeno
• Downloader-ACV
• Uploader-R
It has been reported that this infection also drops a separate DollarRevenue Trojan.
Symptoms of Infection
- Detection of a "DRSMARTLOAD.EXE" file
- Frequently being redirected to "promo.dollarrevenue.com"
Secretly connecting to the internet, DollarRevenue can download so much adware to your computer that it becomes unstable and eventually unusable. As more information became available, it was discovered that this infection may have originated from a website connected to a password thieving Trojan application.
The program continued to make news in the software security industry in 2007. According to the International Herald Tribune Associated Press, a Dutch government agency fined three companies and two unnamed individuals $1 million dollars for infecting 22 million machines worldwide.
Removing DollarRevenue
The DollarRevenue program nor any of it's applications come with uninstall functions. While they can be removed manually, doing so proves to be a task. In order to begin you must stop all DollarRevenue processes; as you can see from the information above, this could take hours. From there you must remove all corrupt DLL. files which are often difficult to differentiate from genuine files. Lastly, you have to dig into the registry of your computer and delete the keys it created. This is not only time consuming but quite dangerous as well.
The recommended method of removing DollarRevenue is reliable anti-malware software. The best method of protection begins with prevention. Keep this nasty program away from your computer by roaming the web with caution, installing a firewall application and running a quality spyware scanner.
