McAfee > Theat Center > Virus Detail Page

Overview

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.

Characteristics

This is not a virus or trojan. It is a direct-marketing adware application. This application generates extra pop-up ads while using Internet Explorer.

This application is currently not known to be bundled with other programs. However, this application by Adtools Inc is known to be used by other companies to promote websites or movies. Example: Finding Nemo. Users agree to have the Adware installed in the license agreement, although they may not realise at first that this file was packaged with the product they installed.

Installation

Upon execution, the application runs in the background.

The following Registry key is added to hook system startup:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Run "Windows AdTools" = WINADTOO.EXE

Users who would like to check for the presence of potentially unwanted programs on their system should run the command line scanner with the /PROGRAM switch.
Please note that VirusScan 7, and higher, has an option that enables users to detect this kind of program automatically (see below).

Symptoms

N/A This is not a virus or trojan

Method of Infection

N/A This is not a virus or trojan

Removal

Instructions on Enabling/Disabling Detection and Removal of Potentially Unwanted Programs

Variants

Variants

N/A

All Information

Overview -

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.

Characteristics

Characteristics -

This is not a virus or trojan. It is a direct-marketing adware application. This application generates extra pop-up ads while using Internet Explorer.

This application is currently not known to be bundled with other programs. However, this application by Adtools Inc is known to be used by other companies to promote websites or movies. Example: Finding Nemo. Users agree to have the Adware installed in the license agreement, although they may not realise at first that this file was packaged with the product they installed.

Installation

Upon execution, the application runs in the background.

The following Registry key is added to hook system startup:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Run "Windows AdTools" = WINADTOO.EXE

Users who would like to check for the presence of potentially unwanted programs on their system should run the command line scanner with the /PROGRAM switch.
Please note that VirusScan 7, and higher, has an option that enables users to detect this kind of program automatically (see below).

Symptoms

Symptoms -

N/A This is not a virus or trojan

Method of Infection

Method of Infection -

N/A This is not a virus or trojan

Removal -

Removal -

Instructions on Enabling/Disabling Detection and Removal of Potentially Unwanted Programs

Variants

Variants -

N/A