Forest Start Tabs
Threat Scorecard
EnigmaSoft Threat Scorecard
EnigmaSoft Threat Scorecards are assessment reports for different malware threats which have been collected and analyzed by our research team. EnigmaSoft Threat Scorecards evaluate and rank threats using several metrics including real-world and potential risk factors, trends, frequency, prevalence, and persistence. EnigmaSoft Threat Scorecards are updated regularly based on our research data and metrics and are useful for a wide range of computer users, from end users seeking solutions to remove malware from their systems to security experts analyzing threats.
EnigmaSoft Threat Scorecards display a variety of useful information, including:
Ranking: The ranking of a particular threat in EnigmaSoft’s Threat Database.
Severity Level: The determined severity level of an object, represented numerically, based on our risk modeling process and research, as explained in our Threat Assessment Criteria.
Infected Computers: The number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular threat detected on infected computers as reported by SpyHunter.
See also Threat Assessment Criteria.
| Ranking: | 4,960 |
| Threat Level: | 50 % (Medium) |
| Infected Computers: | 2,762 |
| First Seen: | March 2, 2022 |
| Last Seen: | September 24, 2023 |
| OS(es) Affected: | Windows |
The Forest Start Tabs is a browser extension that is classified by cybersecurity experts as a browser hijacker, due to its intrusive behavior. Indeed, after installing the application, users will notice significant changes to their Web browsers. Their normal homepage, new tab page, and the default search engine could all have been modified to now open the unfamiliar site foreststarttabs.com.
Browser hijackers are typically tasked with the promotion of fake search engines, and Forest Start Tabs is not an exception. It tries to generate artificial traffic towards exactly such a fake search engine that is completely devoid of the most crucial characteristic for a search engine - the ability to scour the Web and deliver unique results to its users. Instead, the foreststarttabs.com page will take the initiated searches and show results taken from other search engines.
It should be noted that the exact behavior exhibited by foreststarttabs.com could be contingent on a combination of various factors, such as the user's IP address, geolocation, device type, browser type and potentially others. In practice, this means that some users could be presented with results taken from legitimate engines, such as Yahoo and Google, while others could see low-quality results taken from dubious search engines.
