Money Viking

Posted by Max Lehmann on January 11, 2016

What is Money Viking?

The users of Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox browsers need to be careful about Money Viking. This seemingly beneficial shopping assistant is an advertising-supported program that can connect to remote adware servers hosting various kinds of ads. Banners, pop-unders, pop-ups, and interstitial ads could show up with the help of this adware, and this is just the first reason to eliminate it from your operating system. Yes, we advise deleting Money Viking from your operating system, and there are a few different reasons for this. Anti-Spyware-101.com researchers have tested this suspicious program in our internal lab, and we know exactly what kinds of risks you might encounter if you do not eliminate this threat. Please continue reading the report, and, if any questions arise, use the comments section to contact us. test test

How does Money Viking work?

Magic Walk is the developer of Money Viking; however, it is very likely that this company is fictitious. Adware developers often try to conceal themselves behind unfamiliar names of bogus companies to make themselves less traceable. We have found that this adware was created using the Injekt engine, which is why it works identically to Bronze Aid, Discovery App, High Stairs, Wander Burst, Blazer Deals, and other suspicious ad-supported programs. Moneyviking.net was set up to introduce computer users to this adware, but we know for a fact that this website does not provide an installer, which is why it is unlikely that many users are familiar with it. Of course, you could have come across this site when researching the suspicious adware. In that case, you must have analyzed the Privacy Policy. Have you checked this document? If you have, you must know that third parties are involved in the advertising process. They are not only responsible for serving ads but they are also enabled to employ tracking cookies to spy on you, which can help expose you to more attractive deals. Note that attractiveness can be used to expose you to malicious content.

Once installed, Money Viking can be found under %PROGRAMFILES% or %PROGRAMFILES(x86)%, depending on your operating system. The folder associated with this adware includes the installer, as well as an uninstaller. Additionally, the Extensions folder within that original folder contains a DLL file (e.g., a8007792-8f54-4b9c-bb73-04187702a6ae.dll) that corresponds to the Internet Explorer extension, and/or the firefox@www.moneyviking.net.xpi file that corresponds to the Firefox extension. The newer versions of Firefox automatically block this extension without the possibility to enable it, which is a red flag that this add-on is malicious. If you do not delete the files of this adware, it will contact remote servers, such as hdapp1008-a.akamaihd.net and Moneyviking-a.akamaihd.net, and start injecting ads.

The ads shown to you by adware can be extremely attractive, but that is mostly because of the cookies that are set up to collect information about your personal interest and your browsing habits. No matter how attractive a deal/ad might seem, you should not click on it unless you are confident that the program/site showing it is reliable. If you are not careful, you could open security backdoors. A harmless looking link hidden behind a false offer could lead you to a malicious website, and this could lead to serious security issues. Hopefully, this is not the case, and you can remove malware without serious consequences.

How to remove Money Viking

Do you have experience at eliminating undesirable software? What about advertising-supported software? Do you think you know how this software works and how to remove Money Viking from your operating system? Are you sure you can avoid making mistakes? Although most users choose the manual removal option, not all of them are successful. In order to be successful, you need to uninstall adware, as well as to eliminate the leftovers. Unfortunately, there are a few leftovers that you will need to eliminate from your operating system, and we list them below. It is possible that you will encounter the same problems when eliminating third-party malware which is likely to come bundled. If you want to get rid of all computer threats at the same time, an authentic anti-malware tool is the best instrument. Of course, you have to choose wisely to avoid installing rogue security software/malware.