The fake Adobe Flash Player update popup is the central point of this large-scale propagation. The underlying harmful application comes with software bundles that seem innocuous upon initial inspection but actually promote additional items in a surreptitious way. The operators of this traffic redistribution wave didn’t reinvent the wheel as far as the infection vector is concerned. How did Yahoo Search virus infect my Mac? These characteristics might not be too eye-catching, but they are a telltale sign of the attack. When Safari, Chrome, or Firefox is redirected due to the hijack, the landing resource is typically a customized version of Yahoo and there is a logo of the corresponding shady service shown in the upper right-hand corner of the results page, and there is a phrase saying “Explore with Yahoo! Search” next to the search bar. The wicked logic of their functioning revolves around the exploitation of what’s called the Yahoo Hosted Search (YHS). The affiliated web pages are, ,, and, respectively. They override the victim’s original online navigation defaults, such as the preferred search provider and homepage, by embedding a setting of their own. These are Safe Finder, Search Mine, Search Pulse, and Any Search Manager. There are four mainstream PUAs that invoke fraudulent redirects to beyond the user’s approval. The analysis of this malicious mechanism is incomplete unless the core adware is added to the mix. These primarily include domains from the infamous a. malware family.

There are several “padding” services that show in the browser’s status bar for a very short time, usually a fraction of a second. Before the browser hits the destination page, it resolves several dubious URLs that bridge the gap between the attackers and attack monetization through poor-quality advertising networks. In fact, the relatively mild damage smokescreens a multi-pronged traffic reorganization hoax. Yahoo is legitimate and trustworthy, so the impression could be generally okay, except that the forwarding takes place without the user’s consent.

The redirect scheme is constructed in such a way that the victim may mistake the virus attack for a trivial or accidental tweak of the browser settings. The landing page,, is the tip of the iceberg in this plot. The following paragraphs will dot the i’s and cross the t’s so that you can grasp the gist of this annoying campaign. At first sight, the whys and wherefores of this tactic seem unclear, but in-depth scrutiny reveals that the adware operators’ motivation is ultimately clear-cut. One the nastiest threats of that kind is a potentially unwanted application (PUA) that takes over the main web navigation preferences in Safari, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox and causes an incessant rerouting to Yahoo Search. To get rid of malware, you need to purchase the full version of Combo Cleaner. The free scanner checks whether your Mac is infected with Yahoo redirect virus.

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