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Threat Profile: Adware-Starware.dr

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Virus Profile information details
Risk Assessment: Home N/A | Corporate N/A
Date Discovered: 8/17/2005
Date Added: 8/17/2005
Origin: Unknown
Length: N/A
Type: Program
Subtype: Dropper
DAT Required: 4561
Removal Instructions
   
 
 
   

Description

This is a Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP) detection. It is not a virus or trojan. PUPs are any piece of software which a reasonably security-or privacy-minded computer user may want to be informed of.

Symptoms

N/A This is not a virus or Trojan

Method

N/A This is not a virus or Trojan

Aliases

Adware.Starware : Symantec
   

Virus Characteristics

McAfee(R) AVERT™ recognizes that this program may have legitimate uses in contexts where an authorized administrator has knowingly installed this application. If you agreed to a license agreement for this, or another bundled application, you may have legal obligations with regard to removing this software, or using the host application without this software. Please contact the software vendor for further information.

See http://vil.nai.com/vil/DATReadme.asp for a list of Program detections added to the DATs.

See http://vil.nai.com/vil/pups/configuration.htm for information about how to enable, disable, and exclude detection of legitimately installed programs.

Summary

This is not a virus or a Trojan.
It is an adware dropper. It drops adware application on the system, which may generate extra pop-up ads while using Internet Explorer. Upon execution of the installation program, a window appears as below:

Privacy

No license agreement is displayed during installation, although one could be displayed by another installer if bundled with another application. No privacy policy related to the software could be found.

System Changes

File Name : SStarware_305.exe
MD5Hash : afa9192759e17b018d2d554241f25888

Upon execution of this application, search page of the Internet Explorer changes to “as.starware.com/dp/search”. While browsing the internet it makes some connections with “starware.com”. It creates a BHO entry in the Internet Explorer and adds a toolbar as shown below:

Following folder is added in %Program Files% directory:

  • Starware

Following files are added:

  • StarwareUninstall.exe
  • Starware.dll

Following registry entries are added:

  • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D49E9D35-254C-4c6a-9D17-95018D228FF5} displayname="Starware"
  • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{CA356D79-679B-4b4c-8E49-5AF97014F4C1} displayname="Starware"
  • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{7BED0340-176B-44bc-915E-C21C1DD6F617} displayname="Starware"
  • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2D51D869-C36B-42bd-AE68-0A81BC771FA5} displayname="Starware"
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Starware
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
    Explorer\Browser Helper Objects\{CA356D79-679B-4b4c-8E49-
    5AF97014F4C1}
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\
    Toolbar | "{D49E9D35-254C-4c6a-9D17-95018D228FF5}"
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search | "SearchAssistant"
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
    Uninstall\Starware

Network Impact

Additional overhead in bandwidth due to unwanted internet connections.