Fireball, this adware that spies on you and controls your computer

On the Internet, threats are becoming more and more sneaky. Under the guise of a legitimate program, Fireball turns your Mac or PC into an ad display but also allows cybercriminals to take control of it.

Recent adwares are not a new threat. Far from it. These inquisitive software infiltrates the heart of the browser to pervert your searches by unwanted advertisements and open for no apparent reason advertising windows on the desktop.
They are often considered more annoying than really dangerous. Wrongly. Not only do advertised advertisements often point to sites of scams or controlled by cybercriminals (for example, to sell counterfeits), but they also sometimes display banner ads containing exploits to infiltrate your machine and introduce malware.

Fireball, the sly


The latest Adware, called Fireball, comes to reiterate just how dangerous these software vermines, always delicate to remove. Fireball has infected tens of millions of machines around the world. PCs like Macs! Because, yes, in the case of Fireball, users of Apple machines are no more immune than those of the Windows universe.

Produced by a Chinese digital marketing agency and regarded as a simple advertising tool, Fireball presents itself as licit software with a digital certificate. It installs without your knowledge when you download some free software like SoSo Desktop or FVP Imageviewer for example. Once installed on the PC, it first reconfigures the search engines and home page of your web browsers (and prevents you from modifying these settings). Like many other adware, the software automatically modifies pages to display advertisements and automatically generates traffic to search engines by including tracking pixels to collect private user information that is then resold to advertising agencies. But the real danger is elsewhere. Because Fireball does not stop there. It is able to install extensions to browsers without your consent, some of them boosting its advertising revenue. Worse still, it can execute any code on the computer, making it a particularly dangerous backdoor. Symantec recognizes and classifies Fireball as a "Trojan" rather than an "Adware".

A threat on PC as on Mac

Fireball reminds everyone of the importance of paying close attention to software that is believed to be free and downloaded without special precautions from the Internet. Many of them carry adware that can be dangerous to the security of your system and data, not to mention the privacy breaches that follow from their tracking of your activities on the Web.
This malware also reminds you of the importance of protecting your computer with a modern security suite, able to counter such sneaky threats, effectively defend your online identity, strengthen web browsers and actively protect Windows PCs As Macs on Mac OS X. A suite like Norton Security Deluxe, for example, can protect 5 devices from the home, Mac and PC, but also smartphones and tablets, against all forms of malware and attacks from the Internet .