Twicth.tv is a web-site platform created to connect gamers throughout all over the world. Twict.tv helps gamers connect, chat and communicate no matter where they play games from. It was recently discovered that the site has a relatively good fake copy which may lead people to believe they are opening the original platform if they land on it. The personification is called twitchtv.net.
The twicthtv.net fraud site suggests potentially unwanted programs, known by the abbreviation PUP, for users to install on their computers. The site has different software packages running on the background and if a user opens it they start installing programs on their machines.
How does that happen? Opening the twitchtv.net fake copy users see two buttons – one suggesting a plug-in download (‘Install Now’) and another suggesting later installation (‘Install Later’). Clicking on either of them starts downloading programs on the background without the users’ knowledge however.
The PUPs, known also as PUA (Potentially Unwanted Applications) are not a threat to the system security in general. What they do though is affecting the whole overall performance on the users’ computers and may sometimes cause spam messages.
In a blog posted on 16th October this year Adam Kujawa, a PC Safety expert warns that beyond taking up systems recourses and seeing unwanted advertising messages PUP are also being used to install softwares like Bitcoin Miners and malware as well. This method for installing unwanted software on computers is created as a part of the classical affiliate marketing scheme for advertising and each user installation is being paid for to the distributers from the creators of the software. In addition, the file which is being located as
What Do PUPs Do after Users Allow Them to Start Installing on Their Computers?
What you will notice if you have PUPs installed on your machine is opening of video streaming sites prompting you for registration to see their contents, showing you fake messages for program updates and offering you Firefox add-on installations if you have Firefox installed on your computer. All these actions are being initiated from the programs running on the background.
Regular visitors of the original twitch.tv site are aware that in order to run videos on the platform users must have Adobe Flash Player installed on their computers. If there are no messages prompting them to install the software users should be aware that something wrong is going on.
To avoid prosecution on the unwanted programs the fake twitchtv.net site has a note in the lower part of the platform explaining that files downloaded from it may encourage users to install other add-ons, applications, games and anti-virus solutions.
