Summary

Swicer is a very intrusive adware/spyware software. It installs itself as Internet Explorer plugin and keeps showing popups and downloads executable files from LOP.COM website.

Disinfection

Usually Swicer downloader is dropped to computers from certain webpages if Internet Explorer is used to view them. Then the downloader is activated and it hiddenly downloads and activates main Swicer components. These components are packed inside a single executable file - dropper. When run, this dropper unpacks a few GIF image and one HTML file with random names into Windows folder and then drops the Internet Explorer plugin with a random name into Application Data folder of a current user. So when IE is opened next time, the plugin is activated and a there appears a blue searchbar with several buttons in IE interface. However sometimes the plugin fails to activate.

The plugin shows popups and at some point can open webpages that contain more adware components. To our knowledge there are no uninstallation instructions for Swicer adware available from its manufacturer, so we are providing manual disinfection instructions below.

To get rid of Swicer adware please go to the following folder with your Windows Explorer (by default this folder is on C: drive):

 \Documents and Settings\<current_user>\Application Data\

where <current_user> is your user name (the name that you log in to your computer, without brackets). In that folder there should be a single DLL file with a random name and about 510-530 kilobytes in size. Please close your Internet Explorer and delete that DLL file. Then the adware problem should be solved.

Also it is recommended to delete the following folder that is used by Swicer adware to download additional components:

 \Documents and Settings\<current_user>\Local Settings\Temp\delete.me

where <current_user> is your user name (the name that you log in to your computer, without brackets).

Additional Details

Detection

Detection for this adware was published on December 2nd, 2003 in the following F-Secure Anti-Virus updates:

[FSAV_Database_Version]
Version-2003-12-02_01



Write-up: Alexey Podrezov, February 23rd, 2004;