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.

Distribution

This is not a virus or a trojan. It is detected as a "potentially unwanted program." It is a direct-marketing application that displays context-based advertisements while browsing the web. When searching for certain keywords on search engines or shopping websites, contextual advertisements are shown in the sidebar window on the left.

This application displays a user agreement when installed. The agreement does indicate the advertising funtionality of the software. The full text of the license agreement can be accessed on the author's website http://sidebar.squaretrade.com/content/download.do?sourceID=homepage .

Privacy

A privacy policy is displayed during installation. The full text of the policy can be accessed on the author's website http://sidebar.squaretrade.com/content/download.do?sourceID=homepage .

The software transmits obfuscated data and a unique ID silently to squaretrade.com servers during browsing. If the "Comparison Shopping Display" option is disabled the SideBar will no longer appear automatically to display contextual ads. However, even with all 3 of the preferences options disabled; data is still transferred, along with the ZIP code entered which is required to change the preferences.

System Changes

General defaults for typical path variables (although they may be different, they usually are not):
%WinDir% = \WINDOWS (Windows 9x/ME/XP), \WINNT (Windows NT/2000)
%SystemDir% = \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 (Windows 9x/ME/XP), \WINNT\SYSTEM32 (Windows NT/2000)
%ProgramFiles% = \Program Files

Files Added

• Installer: squaretradesidebarshop.exe (405 KB)
  MD5: C69E2644EE22F167F51D9E971A38CA3D
• %ProgramFiles%\squaretrade sidebar\_setupx.dll (28 KB)
  MD5: MD5: C75A6CEAF6DB0988CA3005B1BDF25E48
• %ProgramFiles%\squaretrade sidebar\uninstall.ini (size & MD5 vary)
  
• %ProgramFiles%\squaretrade sidebar\uninstall.exe (69 KB)
  MD5: D77C703882761721927E72E3569E5574
• %ProgramFiles%\squaretrade sidebar\stsadb.bin (size & MD5 vary))
  
• %ProgramFiles%\squaretrade sidebar\sthlpr.exe (136 KB)
  MD5: 0920E86D3F51C06ED1B1F7C2CCA5BB84
• %ProgramFiles%\squaretrade sidebar\stdbmgr.exe (152 KB)
  MD5: 9619A8DF9DE4DF7340489E608A56D0F0
• %ProgramFiles%\squaretrade sidebar\squaretrade sidebar.url (1 KB)
  
• %ProgramFiles%\squaretrade sidebar\shpasst.dll (196 KB)
  MD5: FEBB151A2B29532E4CB45747FF63761B
• %ProgramFiles%\squaretrade sidebar\shortcut.exe (64 KB)
  MD5: 43E0A9C2E88E07C7978C4C5E209411E6
• %ProgramFiles%\squaretrade sidebar\icon_32x32.ico (6 KB)
  
• c:\documents and settings\all users\start menu\programs\squaretrade sidebar\uninstall squaretrade sidebar.lnk (1 KB)
  
• c:\documents and settings\all users\start menu\programs\squaretrade sidebar\squaretrade sidebar.lnk (1 KB)
  
• c:\documents and settings\(username)\cookies\(username)@www.squaretrade[1].txt (1 KB)
  
• c:\documents and settings\(username)\cookies\(username)@sidebar.squaretrade[1].txt (1 KB)
  

Registry

The following registry keys are created:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
  \Uninstall\SquareTrade SideBar
  
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
  \Explorer\Browser Helper Objects\{E3788F79-18CF-4D9A-A7B4-1BF43E914A8A}
  
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Extensions
  \{7B3E5F6B-ADF4-4731-9DAD-AC8AE9A4DFEC}
  "(default)"="SquareTrade SideBar"
  "CLSID"="{E0DD6CAB-2D10-11D2-8F1A-0000F87ABD16}"
  "BandCLSID"="{A3D34741-BDB2-4A96-AD4E-3092AF9B8126}"
  
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SquareTrade SideBar
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{783AF6A7-334A-4250-8B39-AE721D0BD86A}
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{1FCC5554-9332-4E20-ABF7-3EAA1667AEF6}
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Stdbmgr.DBMgr.1
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Stdbmgr.DBMgr
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Shpasst.ShoppingAssistant.1
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Shpasst.ShoppingAssistant
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Shpasst.Band.1
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Shpasst.Band
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{C0377D82-94A7-4EAF-B595-B398DDA5B96C}
  "default"="IShoppingAssistant"
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{279F0627-D56C-4477-AC05-A66F871B43AC}
  "default"="IBand"
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{2008D0C1-C848-428C-BCEA-0B0A0CF8EA04}
  "default"="IDBMgr"
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{E3788F79-18CF-4D9A-A7B4-1BF43E914A8A}
  "default"="Square Trade Shopping Assistant"
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{C8968802-A62A-4902-9B51-4DD651425AA1}
  "(default)"="DBMgr Class"
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{A3D34741-BDB2-4A96-AD4E-3092AF9B8126}
  "default"="SquareTrade SideBar"
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AppID\{371CE76B-F367-4A9A-A41F-D8D9E9C4D225}
  "default"="stdbmgr"
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AppID\stdbmgr.EXE
  

Network Impact

Additional overhead in bandwidth due to download of advertising content and transmission of browsing data to remote servers.

Removal

Aliases

Aliases

N/A