Have you ever been redirected to a random website while browsing a shopping site? Or did you find your browser’s search and default pages altered automatically every now and then? Well, these signs clearly indicate that your browser has been hijacked.
A browser hijacker is basically a software program that alters the settings of your browser. Most often, it injects unwanted advertising into the user’s browser by altering default home pages and search pages to a target website in order to increase its advertising revenue.
Further, browser hijacking attempts are made to steal personal information of a user or tracking their browsing habits. In these attempts, a spyware program is injected into victim’s browser, such as a keylogger, to gather sensitive information like banking credentials.
One of the first browser hijackers were CoolWebSearch which is basically a rogue search engine that promotes sponsored links. Other examples include Ask Toolbar, Go Save, Onewebsearch, etc.
Have a safe and secure browsing time!