Remove Securitydefender Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Securitydefender pop-up notifications may appear unexpectedly, covering the material of the site you checked or opening your browser when you don’t wish it to be opened.

Clicking the Securitydefender advertisement may result in the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the tutorial of Securitydefender popups clearing in multiple ways, and also examining your PC for additional malware presence.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware Review
It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!
Removing Securitydefender manually may take hours and may damage your PC in the process. I recommend you to download GridinSoft Anti-Malware for threats removal. Allows to complete scan and cure your PC during the trial period.
Gridinsoft Anti-Malware 6-day trial available.
EULA | Privacy Policy | 10% Off Coupon
Subscribe to our Telegram channel to be the first to know about news and our exclusive materials on information security.

What are Securitydefender pop-ups?

Securitydefender popups are a consequence of adware presence. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a massive amount of income for adware distributors. These promotions may contain explicit information, or have a link to harmful content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is money.

Securitydefender push notification

Securitydefender push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, low-cost and really efficient advertising method1. It permits the seller to link the buyers’ attention to their site, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the consumer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to purchase is provided at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this possibility and get it. Considering the very low cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing tool is a favourite thing amidst the advertising departments of big online stores.

Nevertheless, such a successful system could not be missed by virus developers. Option to demonstrate the popup ads forcibly to the targets of malware attack is an excellent basis for malicious tricks with the popup promotions. And Securitydefender.xyz ads is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a details for the Securitydefender
SiteSecuritydefender.xyz
HostingAS24940 Hetzner Online GmbH
Germany, Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address168.119.150.62
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorKetoworkf, Funfollowcollect, News
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Securitydefender virus?

There are a plenty of methods of getting contaminated by the adware that trigger the Securitydefender popups tornado. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware can likewise be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is offered as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of people often work with the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various tools that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these sorts of programs are risky, because it is quite simple to build in a Securitydefender malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Securitydefender popup virus can also be concealed in the ad somewhere on the odd website. Such web pages are typically packed with bright and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors typically accept any promos to be published on their web page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor knows what will occur when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can also get something far more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious promotions.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Securitydefender pop-up virus can initiate a variety of problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-ups can display you the advertisements, where you are offered to download one more strange program, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is usually spread under the last motto. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and fake antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also chosen as a spreading way by different trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these promotions, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data and money loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Securitydefender pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Securitydefender adware removal contains 2 sections. First, we need to deal with the malware, and then deal with the results of its activity. The removal task is really simple, due to the fact that it may be done even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware tool that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its huge resources utilization, along with some bugs that may be crucial for some categories of users, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its usage is probably impossible. Additionally, different trojan viruses are able to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to make use of the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security device that will undoubtedly erase the viruses from your personal computer and create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s handle Securitydefender adware initially.

Removing Securitydefender 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 Securitydefender 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 web browsers are reset, you need to ensure that your browser will be connected the correct DNS while connecting to the site you want. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then 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 problem that makes the things a lot harder to fix, particularly without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Securitydefender pop-up promotions 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 certainly collapse soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, but huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and after that it will be back to the typical, until you try 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 Securitydefender Pop-ups?

Name: Securitydefender

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

Sending
User Review
3.83 (6 votes)
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

References

  1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and also the reasons why I advise it for malware elimination.
  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.

Leave a Reply

Sending