ContentCloud Monster Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
ContentCloud Monster pop-up notices may show up unexpectedly, covering the post of the website you visited or opening your web browser when you do not need it to be opened.

Clicking on the ContentCloud Monster promotion can cause the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guideline of ContentCloud Monster popups removal in a couple of methods, as well as checking your system for additional viruses existence.

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What are ContentCloud Monster pop-ups?

ContentCloud Monster popups are a result of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which creates a large amount of earnings for adware suppliers. These advertisements may have explicit content, or have a web link to harmful content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is money.

ContentCloud Monster push notification

ContentCloud Monster push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a very good, low-cost and also very productive marketing method1. It makes it possible for the vendor to link the customers’ attention to their website, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the person will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is provided at the online store he/she visited earlier with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this chance and buy it. Considering the exceptionally low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing instrument is a favorite thing amidst the marketing teams of big online retailers.

However, such a successful scheme could not be missed by virus developers. Option to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the victims of malware attack is a great basis for malevolent adjustments with the popup ads. And Contentcloud.monster ads is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a info for the ContentCloud Monster site
Site Contentcloud.monster
Hosting AS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC
Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 178.62.225.201
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Mo20, Mo21, Mo22
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the ContentCloud Monster virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of becoming infected by the adware that result in the ContentCloud Monster popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus cases is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may additionally be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is delivered as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of individuals frequently work with the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of tools that are free of cost, and even hacked programs. Every one of these types of software are dangerous, because it is very simple to include a ContentCloud Monster malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

ContentCloud Monster popup malware may also be hidden in the ad somewhere on the strange site. Such sites are generally full of bright and blinking ads, and their owners often approve any promos to be published on their page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor realizes what will happen when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can also get something much more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

People dislike popups

The statistic shows that people dislike popup advertising more than other types of promotions

How can I get rid of ContentCloud Monster pop-up advertisements?

The manual of ContentCloud Monster adware elimination consists of 2 sections. First, we need to remove the malware, and after that repair the results of its action. The elimination process is quite simple, due to the fact that it can be performed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware program that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, because of its large resources usage, as well as some failures that can be crucial for some types of individuals, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its usage is probably impossible. Moreover, various trojan viruses are able to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security device that will undoubtedly remove the viruses from your computer and also make an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s handle ContentCloud Monster adware first.

Removing ContentCloud Monster popup virus with GridinSoft Anti-Malware

  • Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware. After the installation, you will be offered to perform the Standard Scan. Approve this action.
  • Gridinsoft Anti-Malware during the scan process

  • Standard scan checks the logical disk where the system files are stored, together with the files of programs you have already installed. The scan lasts up to 6 minutes.
  • GridinSoft Anti-Malware scan results

  • When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of ContentCloud Monster malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.
  • GridinSoft Anti-Malware - After Cleaning

Now, when the computer is clean of viruses, we can proceed to the browser reset. You can do this step manually, as well as with the use of GridinSoft Anti-Malware.

Reset browser settings to default

Manual method of browser reset

To reset Edge, do the following steps :
  1. Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :
  2. Reseting the Edge browser

  3. After picking the Reset Settings option, you will see the following menu, stating about the settings which will be reverted to original :
For Mozilla Firefox, do the next actions :
  1. Open Menu tab (three strips in upper right corner) and click the “Help” button. In the appeared menu choose “troubleshooting information” :
  2. The first step to revert Mozilla Firefox

  3. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :
  4. The second step of Firefox restoration
    After choosing this option, you will see the next message :
    The last step for Firefox
If you use Google Chrome
  1. Open Settings tab, find the “Advanced” button. In the extended tab choose the “Reset and clean up” button :
  2. In the appeared list, click on the “Restore settings to their original defaults” :
  3. Finally, you will see the window, where you can see all the settings which will be reset to default :
Opera can be reset in the next way
  1. Open Settings menu by pressing the gear icon in the toolbar (left side of the browser window), then click “Advanced” option, and choose “Browser” button in the drop-down list. Scroll down, to the bottom of the settings menu. Find there “Restore settings to their original defaults” option :

  2. After clicking the “Restore settings…” button, you will see the window, where all settings, which will be reset, are shown :

When the browsers are reset, you need to ensure that your web browser will definitely be connected the proper DNS while connecting to the website you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following lines3:

# Copyright (c) 1993-2006 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a ‘#’ symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
# localhost name resolution is handle within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost

Find the hosts.txt file in C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc directory. Rename this file to “hosts.old.txt” (to distinguish it from the new one), and then move the file you created on the desktop to this folder. Remove the hosts.old from this folder. Now you have your hosts file as good as new.

However, there is one issue that makes the things a lot harder to fix, specifically without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware variants that are used to show you the ContentCloud Monster pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your system was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the normal, until you try to open settings once again.

Reset your browser settings with GridinSoft Anti-Malware

To reset your browser with GridinSoft Anti-Malware, open the Tools tab, and click the “Reset browser settings” button.

Tools tab in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

You can see the list of the options for each browser. By default, they are set up in the manner which fits the majority of users. Press the “Reset” button (lower right corner). In a minute your browser will be as good as new.

Reset Browser Settings tab in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

The browser reset is recommended to perform through the antivirus tool by GridinSoft, because last is also able to reset the HOSTS file without any additional commands.

How to Remove ContentCloud Monster Pop-ups?

Name: ContentCloud Monster

Description: ContentCloud Monster - a lot of users became a target for the pop-up advertisements. I have a lot of friends who literally bombed me with the questions like “how to remove Contentcloud.monster push notifications?” or “why do Contentcloud.monster pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with ContentCloud Monster pop-ups, which may corrupt your browser’s correct performance, and create a lot of troubles while you are working.

Operating System: Windows

Application Category: Adware

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References

  1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and also the reasons why I suggest it for malware removal.
  3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.

About the author

Wilbur Woodham

I was a technical writer from early in my career, and consider IT Security one of my foundational skills. I’m sharing my experience here, and I hope you find it useful.

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