Smartwebsearch.com
Smartwebsearch.com Image
Smartwebsearch.com is a fake search engine associated with a browser hijacker by the same name. They both work together, in order to take over your Internet browser and then force it to visit the Smartwebsearch.com website. Visiting this dangerous website will expose your computer system to a large amount of malware as well as to websites involved in online scams. Because of this, ESG security researchers consider infections such as the Smartwebsearch.com browser hijacker to be extremely dangerous. While the Smartwebsearch.com browser hijacker is not particularly harmful to an infected computer system in itself, and the Smartwebsearch.com website will not directly attack your computer system, there is no question that a Smartwebsearch.com infection will invariably result in a large amount of malware making its way into your computer system. Even worse, in many cases the Smartwebsearch.com browser hijacker will be associated with a dangerous rootkit infection (such as ZeroAccess, TDSS, or Alureon). If a rootkit is present on your computer system, trying to remove any malware related to Smartwebsearch.com will be next to impossible. In these cases, it may be necessary to take care of the rootkit with an anti-malware program suited for this task.
How the Smartwebsearch.com Scam Works
The main goal of websites such as Smartwebsearch.com is to create an illegal profit gained from artificially-boosted online traffic. Criminals can earn money from advertisements, affiliate marketing links and pay-per-click schemes by forcing their victims to visit their websites repeatedly. While these are ways in which revenue is generated online, legitimate websites must attract traffic by creating useful content or services that will keep visitors engaged and constantly returning. Criminals force their victims to visit their websites with browser hijackers, instead of bothering to create any sort of content. In fact, all the content in websites affiliated with Smartwebsearch.com will either be composed of advertisements or malicious content, designed to infect the victim with additional malware. It is important to consider that most of the websites and companies that advertise themselves on websites such as Smartwebsearch.com will have been blacklisted by legitimate search engines. This usually happens due to the fact that their products are clearly malware (such as rogue security programs) or because their services contain an illegal element or exploit different illegal or unethical loopholes in order to reach their readers (such as some pornographic websites, illegal online pharmacies or websites involved in money laundering schemes).
