Remove Scanner.system-defending Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Scanner.system-defending pop-up notifications can show up unexpectedly, covering the material of the site you visited or opening your web browser when you do not desire it to be opened.

Clicking the Scanner.system-defending advertisement can trigger the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Scanner.system-defending popups removal in various methods, and also examining your system for other viruses presence.

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What are Scanner.system-defending pop-ups?

Scanner.system-defending popups are a result of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which produces a significant amount of income for adware suppliers. These ads might have explicit information, or have a web link to malicious content/website, since adware maintainers have no purpose to examine the goodness of the material they are going to show – their solitary target is money.

Scanner.system-defending push notification

Scanner.system-defending push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a good, low-cost and extremely productive advertising instrument1. It permits the seller to link the customers’ interest to their site, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the person will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is available at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% price cut, one will certainly use this chance and buy it. Considering the incredibly low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising tool is a much-loved thing amongst the advertising teams of big online stores.

However, such a successful strategy could not be missed by virus creators. Ability to demonstrate the popup ads forcibly to the targets of malware invasion is an ideal basis for malevolent adjustments with the popup ads. And Scanner.system-defending.com advertisements is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a details for the Scanner.system-defending site
SiteScanner.system-defending.com
HostingAS24940 Hetzner Online GmbH
Germany, Falkenstein
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address213.239.195.120
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorTysolomonau, Protection, Paymentsweb
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Scanner.system-defending virus?

There are a lot of methods of getting infected by the adware that create the Scanner.system-defending popups storm. A lion’s part of this computer virus cases is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may also be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is delivered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of individuals often utilize the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of tools that are free, and even hacked programs. All of these kinds of software are dangerous, due to the fact that it is very easy to integrate a Scanner.system-defending malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Scanner.system-defending popup virus can likewise be concealed in the promotion somewhere on the odd web page. Such websites are usually full of colorful and blinking advertisements, and their owners usually accept any type of promos to be published on their web page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor knows what will occur when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may also receive something a lot more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially unwanted programs, like Scanner.system-defending popup virus can provoke a wide range of problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-up notifications can show you the advertisements, where you are offered to get another unknown program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last motto. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also used as a distribution way by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these ads, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Scanner.system-defending pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Scanner.system-defending adware removal includes 2 parts. First, we need to get rid of the malware, and afterwards correct the consequences of its action. The removal task is pretty easy, since it may be done even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, because of its substantial resources usage, along with some bugs that can be serious for some groups of individuals, Defender is often disabled by the users, so its use is most likely impossible. What’s more, a wide range of trojan viruses can switch 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 use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will surely erase the malware from your computer and make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s handle Scanner.system-defending adware first.

Removing Scanner.system-defending 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 Scanner.system-defending 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 connect the appropriate DNS while connecting to the website you want. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following text3:

# 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.

Nevertheless, there is one issue that makes things a lot more difficult to restore, especially without the anti-malware software. Most of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Scanner.system-defending pop-up advertisements are changing the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your system was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the typical, till you attempt to open settings one more time.

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 Scanner.system-defending Pop-ups?

Name: Scanner.system-defending

Description: Scanner.system-defending - 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 Scanner.system-defending.com push notifications?” or “why do Scanner.system-defending.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Scanner.system-defending 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 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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