Threat categories

Adware

Adware is software that presents banner ads or in pop-up windows through a bar that appears on a computer screen. These advertisements usually cannot be removed and are consequently always visible. The connection data allow many conclusions on the usage behavior and are problematic in terms of data security.

Your Avira product detects Adware. If the Adware option is enabled with a check mark in the configuration under Threat categories, you receive a corresponding alert if your Avira product detects adware.

Adware/Spyware

Software that displays advertising or software that sends the user’s personal data to a third party, often without their knowledge or consent, and for this reason may be unwanted.

Your Avira product recognizes “Adware/Spyware”. If the option Adware/Spyware is enabled with a check mark in the configuration under Threat categories, you receive a corresponding alert if your Avira product detects adware or spyware.

Application

The term APPL, respectively application, refers to an application which may involve a risk when used or is of dubious origin.

Your Avira product recognizes “Application (APPL)”. If the option Application is enabled with a check mark in the configuration under Threat categories, you receive a corresponding alert if your Avira product detects such behavior.

Backdoor Clients

In order to steal data or manipulate computers, a backdoor server program is smuggled in unknown to the user. This program can be controlled by a third party using backdoor control software (client) via the Internet or a network.

Your Avira product recognizes “Backdoor control software”. If the Backdoor control software option is enabled with a check mark in the configuration under Threat categories, you receive a corresponding alert if your Avira product detects such software.

Dialer

Certain services available in the Internet have to be paid for. They are invoiced in Germany via dialers with 0190/0900 numbers (or via 09×0 numbers in Austria and Switzerland; in Germany, the number is set to change to 09×0 in the medium term). Once installed on the computer, these programs guarantee a connection via a suitable premium rate number whose scale of charges can vary widely.

The marketing of online content via your telephone bill is legal and can be of advantage to the user. Genuine dialers leave no room for doubt that they are used deliberately and intentionally by the user. They are only installed on the user’s computer subject to the user’s consent, which must be given via a completely unambiguous and clearly visible labeling or request. The dial-up process of genuine dialers is clearly displayed. Moreover, genuine dialers tell you the incurred costs exactly and unmistakably.

Unfortunately there are also dialers which install themselves on computers unnoticed, by dubious means or even with deceptive intent. For example they replace the Internet user’s default data communication link to the ISP (Internet Service Provider) and dial a cost-incurring and often horrendously expensive 0190/0900 number every time a connection is made. The affected user will probably not notice until his next phone bill that an unwanted 0190/0900 dialer program on his computer has dialed a premium rate number with every connection, resulting in dramatically increased costs.

We recommend that you ask your telephone provider to block this number range directly for immediate protection against undesired dialers (0190/0900 dialers).

Your Avira product can detect the familiar dialers by default.

If the option Dialers is enabled with a check mark in the configuration under Threat categories, you receive a corresponding alert if a dialer is detected. You can now simply delete the potentially unwanted 0190/0900 dialer. However, if it is a wanted dial-up program, you can declare it an exceptional file and this file is then no longer scanned in future.

Double Extension Files

Executable files that hide their real file extension in a suspicious way. This camouflage method is often used by malware.

Your Avira product recognizes “Double Extension Files”. If the option Double Extension files is enabled with a check mark in the configuration under Threat categories, you receive a corresponding alert if your Avira product detects such files.

Fraudulent software

Also known as “scareware” or “rogueware”, it is a fraudulent software that pretends that your computer is infected by viruses or malware. This software looks deceptively similar to professional antivirus software but is meant to raise uncertainty or to scare the user. Its purpose is to make the victims feel threatened of imminent (unreal) danger and to make them pay to eliminate it. There are also cases when the victims are lead to believe they were attacked and they are instructed to carry out an action, which in reality is the real attack.

Your Avira product detects scareware. If the option Fraudulent software is enabled with a check mark in the configuration Threat categories, you receive a corresponding alert if your Avira product detects such files.

Games

There is a place for computer games – but it is not necessarily at work (except perhaps in the lunch hour). Nevertheless, with the wealth of games downloadable from the Internet, a fair bit of mine sweeping and Patience playing goes on among company employees and civil servants. You can download a whole array of games via the Internet. Email games have also become more popular: numerous variants are circulating, ranging from simple chess to “fleet exercises” (including torpedo combats): The corresponding moves are sent to partners via email programs, who answer them.

Studies have shown that the number of working hours devoted to computer games has long reached economically significant proportions. It is therefore not surprising that more and more companies are considering ways of banning computer games from workplace computers.

Your Avira product recognizes computer games. If the Games option is enabled with a check mark in the configuration under Threat categories, you receive a corresponding alert if your Avira product detects a game. The game is now over in the truest sense of the word, because you can simply delete it.

Jokes

Jokes are merely intended to give someone a fright or provide general amusement without causing harm or reproducing. When a joke program is loaded, the computer will usually start at some point to play a tune or display something unusual on the screen. Examples of jokes are the washing machine in the disk drive (DRAIN.COM) or the screen eater (BUGSRES.COM).

But beware! All symptoms of joke programs may also originate from a virus or Trojan. At the very least users will get quite a shock or be thrown into such a panic that they themselves may cause real damage.

Thanks to the extension of its scanning and identification routines, your Avira product is able to detect joke programs and eliminate them as unwanted programs if required. If the option Jokes is enabled with a check mark in the configuration under Threat categories, a corresponding alert is issued if a joke program is detected.

Phishing

Phishing, also known as “brand spoofing” is a clever form of data theft aimed at customers or potential customers of Internet service providers, banks, online banking services, registration authorities.
When submitting your email address on the Internet, filling in online forms, accessing newsgroups or websites, your data can be stolen by “Internet crawling spiders” and then used without your permission to commit fraud or other crimes.

Your Avira product recognizes “Phishing”. If the option Phishing is enabled with a check mark in the configuration under Threat categories, you receive a corresponding alert if your Avira product detects such behavior.

Programs that violate the private domain

Software that may be able to compromise the security of your system, initiate unwanted program activities, damage your privacy or spy on your user behavior and could therefore be unwanted.

Your Avira product detects “Security Privacy Risk” software. If the option Programs that violate the private domain is enabled with a check mark in the configuration under Threat categories, you receive a corresponding alert if your Avira product detects such software.

Unusual Runtime Packers

Files that have been compressed with an unusual runtime packer and that can therefore be classified as potentially suspicious.

Your Avira product recognizes “Unusual runtime packers”. If the option Unusual runtime packers is enabled with a check mark in the configuration under Threat categories, you receive a corresponding alert if your Avira product detects such packers.

Threat categories