McAfee > Theat Center > PUP Detail Page

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 downloader. On execution of the application, it makes multiple internet connections with "ads.surfsidekick.com", "adserver.com", "fastclick.net", "falkag.net", etc. and downloads adware related components. It gives pop-up ads on browsing the internet.

Privacy

EULA is displayed during installation.

System Changes

File Name: “INVITESSK.EXE”
MD5Hash: “ceb311b1b40e5b5f73666f49aecab7fe”

Following directory is added:

• %PROGRAMFILES%\SurfSideKick 3

Following files are added:

• iE.tmp
• u13.bat
• Ssk.exe
• SskBho.dll
• SskCore.dll
• offerssk.exe
• bk.exe
• repairs302972988.dll
• Sskknwrd.dll
• Sskuknwrd.dll

The following registry entries are added:

• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\
  {02EE5B04-F144-47BB-83FB-A60BD91B74A9}
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ssk
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SurfSideKick3
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
  CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Surf SideKick
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
  CurrentVersion\Run | "SurfSideKick 3"

Network Impact

Additional overhead in bandwidth may occur due to download of content.

Removal

Aliases

Aliases

• Adware.SurfSideKick - Symantec
• AdWare.Win32.SurfSide.s - Kaspersky