Name: Xupiter Category: Browser Hijacker Alias: XupiterToolbar Advice: Remove Risk: Elevated Risk Elevated threats are usually threats that fall into the range of adware in which data about a user's habits are tracked and sent back to a server for analysis without your consent or knowledge. Signatures: oolbar Threat type: Browser Hijacker - Adware is generally software that displays advertisements. Some advertisers may covertly install adware on your system and generate a stream of unsolicited advertisements that can clutter your desktop and affect your productivity. The advertisements may also contain pornographic or other material that you might find inappropriate. The extra processing required to track you or to display advertisements can tax your computer and hurt your system performance. Advice: Remove Threat risk: Elevated Risk Elevated threats are usually threats that fall into the range of adware in which data about a user's habits are tracked and sent back to a server for analysis without your consent or knowledge. Description: Xupiter consists of an Internet Explorer toolbar containing link buttons to one of Xupiter's search engines, currently including browserwise.com, sqwire.com, and orbitexplorer.com and a task run at Windows startup which downloads updates to the softw Xupiter is typically installed under the guise of installing other software, and is somewhat clever in its installation techniques, because of this there is a high infection rate for the Xupiter toolbar, and its variants. Usually installed by ActiveX drive-by-download in affiliate pages. More recently also bundled with Grokster. Xupiter causes unwanted popup advertising to appear on your machine, as well as web usage reporting claimed in its privacy policy. Xupiter also is cause for security concern as it routinely contacts its servers for software updates. Similar systems have been abused by hackers and virus writers in the past, and while no exploits have been reported for Xupiter Toolbar at this time, it has been known to download 3rd party applications such as Online Casino Software. Various stability issues have been reported, including crashing system processes, including Internet Explorer under Windows XP. While Xupiter domains are registered to a Hungarian company, it has been reported to be the work of the father and son team of Saeid and Daniel Yomtobian. The Yomtobians are well-known spammers who have been accused of hijacking other peoples' mail servers to pump out solicitations for porn sites. Distribution has also included SPAM offering a 'Free Christian Toolbar' and SPAM offering a program portrayed as able to disable Windows Messenger service pop-ups. The pair is also skilled in setting up stealth websites and has spent much time in court for registering large numbers of mispelled popular URLs in a way that encourages people to arrive at one of their websites accidentally. Saeid Yomtobian at one time owned 78,472 Internet domains. Each of these domains typically offering the ubiquitous Xupiter toolbar for auto download Type: Browser Hijacker - Adware is generally software that displays advertisements. Some advertisers may covertly install adware on your system and generate a stream of unsolicited advertisements that can clutter your desktop and affect your productivity. The advertisements may also contain pornographic or other material that you might find inappropriate. The extra processing required to track you or to display advertisements can tax your computer and hurt your system performance.