123.sogou.com

Posted by Max Lehmann on September 29, 2015

What is 123.sogou.com?

123.sogou.com is an intrusive Chinese search engine that can appear suddenly in your Internet Explorer browser if your computer is attacked by a browser hijacker. This website is set as your home page without your permission. That is a major hit against your privacy that you should not tolerate. Although this is a Chinese hijacker that targets Chinese computer users, it does not mean you cannot get infected with it anywhere on the planet. As you may know, there are no country borders in the virtual world of the Internet. This browser hijacker does not only ignore your privacy, but it may also come with other malware programs on-board. By the time this search engine emerges in your browser, there may be several other infections challenging your operating system already. You need to act as soon as possible; otherwise, these threats may cause more damage than you can manually fix. Therefore, we recommend that you delete 123.sogou.com from your computer. test

Where does 123.sogou.com come from?

As we have already mentioned, this browser hijacker comes from China and mainly hijacks browsers on Chinese computers. However, there is a chance to get infected with this malware if you keep visiting suspicious shareware or torrent websites. Those are the “home” for infected software bundles, which may contain useless and unwanted third-party applications, including malware infections. Since these websites are usually available from anywhere around the world, even you might download such a bundle. That is why we emphasize that you need to be careful about choosing the websites you visit. It is essential to use only reputable websites to download free software from unless you want to end up with a whole bunch of malware infections on your computer.

It is very easy to be misled by questionable third-party ads on unreliable file-sharing websites. These may disguise themselves as “download” or “next-page” buttons, for example. Clicking on these fake buttons may easily result in the download of such an infectious bundle. If you happen to be an unlucky user and are about to install such a package, there is still a way out of it; and that is the point where a lot of users lose this battle against malware. At the beginning of the installation wizard there are usually a few checkboxes designated to additional programs or changes made to your browser settings. If not there, you may be able to choose between quick or custom installation options. You should definitely go for the “custom” option to reveal the real content of the package so that you can opt out from the components you do not wish to install. However, if you missed this opportunity, you had better delete 123.sogou.com and all other possibly related infections as well.

What does 123.sogou.com do?

This search engine offers a variety of links to all kinds of articles and websites. As a matter of fact, the main goal of this website seems to be the promotion of certain affiliated partner sites in order to generate traffic for them. Unfortunately, you cannot check the EULA as all the website material and content are in Chinese. So unless you speak the language, you cannot really get an idea of what may happen if you click on these links and get redirected to all these third-party websites. We definitely advise you not to click anywhere if this search engine surprises you in your browser when you open it. Such suspicious search engines usually start displaying annoying pop-up ads and even modify search results. Our researchers did not experience this kind of behavior while testing this browser hijacker, but it does not mean it cannot happen in the case of other, newer versions or simply with time passing. The safest solution for you is to remove 123.sogou.com from your browser as soon as possible.

How can I remove 123.sogou.com?

Since this browser hijacker only seems to affect the Internet Explorer browser, you can simply overwrite the home page setting in IE. However, even if your browser get rid of this questionable search engine, it does not mean that your computer is safe and sound. It is quite possible that there are other malware programs making your PC more and more vulnerable. If you need an effective way to eliminate all security-related issues, we suggest that you install an antimalware application that will also protect your system from all known infections.