4KSportSearch
No matter how 4KSportSearch might describe itself, users who either willingly or not have this application present on their computers will soon discover that it is nothing but a fully-fledged browser hijacker. The application is equipped with all the capabilities expected from this type of rogue program. It established control over the user's Web browser immediately, and it modifies the homepage, new page tab, and the default search engine settings more specifically. All three of them will be set to open a specific promoted address whenever the browser is opened, a new window is started, or a search is conducted. The address promoted by the 4KSportSearch application is 4ksportsearch.com, a fake search engine.
Fake search engines are called that way because they are incapable of producing any search result at all on their own. Instead, they take every search query initiated in the affected browser and redirect it through a legitimate search engine such as Yahoo, Google, etc. 4ksportsearch.com uses search.yahoo.com for its results. The goal of browser hijacker applications is three-fold:
- By taking drive artificial traffic towards the sponsored address.
- Third-party advertisements that are not related to the specific search terms could be injected into the list of displayed results.
- Most browser hijackers possess at least some data-harvesting capabilities.
Users' browsing history, search history, clicked URLs, IP address, geolocation, and other details might be collected and exfiltrated by the application.
