Dealing With Redirected Internet Searches

Many hackers make their living by redirecting your browser somewhere other than you want to go. The hacker gets paid by getting your clicks to appear on someone else's website, often those who don't know that the clicks to their site are from malicious redirection.

You can often spot this type of malware by typing a few related, very common words (for example, "spaceship" or "baseball") into Internet search engines and checking to see whether the same websites appear in the results -- almost always with no actual relevance to your terms. Unfortunately, many of today's redirected Internet searches are well hidden from the user through use of additional proxies, so the bogus results are never returned to alert the user. In general, if you have bogus toolbar programs, you're also being redirected. Technical users who really want to confirm can sniff their own browser or network traffic. The traffic sent and returned will always be distinctly different on a compromised computer vs. an uncompromised computer.

What to do: Remove any browser toolbars you do not absolutely need. Usually removing the bogus toolbars and programs is enough to get rid of malicious redirection.