How To Remove Project Plague Trojan

Project Plague: Complete Uninstall Guide

Project Plague is a malicious piece of software that includes the infected PC systems to a botnet and infect those devices with some cryptocurrency miners. This nasty trojan virus is controlled by cyber offenders through a website that they specially use as the Command and Control server. The more computers added to the botnet, the more revenue crooks can generate as they can execute their activities using more resources. This kind of PC threat can be utilized for various deceptive purposes and often triggers multiple hazardous issues onto the infected systems like hard drive crash, software failure, data loss, boot errors, application malfunctioning and so on.

Depth Analysis Of Project Plague:

Project Plague can be employed to perform DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks, perform click fraud, send spam and other illusive motives. Cyber crooks launch DDoS attacks to interrupt the traffic of a specific server, service or network. Such attacks are often triggered to make users not unable to access websites and other online services. Botnets are also used to perform malspam campaign during which, thousands of deceptive emails are sent to larger number of users. Cyber criminals proliferate malware as well through botnets using emails that contain vicious files or links.

Project Plague is often utilized to deceive other users into providing login credentials (username, passwords, email addresses), banking information, credit card details or other sensitive data. Moreover, this notorious trojan can be also responsible for the appearance of thousands of intrusive ads on your internet browsers that makes your web sessions very complex. These ads often come with redirecting ability and may take people to highly dangerous sites that may host precarious cyber infections. So, avoid interacting with these adverts no matter how attractive of useful they look.

Project Plague is atypically used to download and install a cryptocurrency miner on the compromised system. This kind of PC threat uses large amount of CPU and GPU resources to mine cryptocurrencies like BitCoins or Monero by solving complex mathematical problems. The faster mining process needs powerful computer hardware and eats up huge amount of system resources. This means, the compromised devices require more electricity, work slower than usual and do not often respond. It causes the machine to work slower than ever before and take more than usual time to complete any task. And hence, a quick Project Plague removal is strongly required.

Ways To Spread Project Plague:

These types of trojan viruses can be spread through multiple deceptive techniques such as malspam emails, unofficial software activation (‘cracking’) tools, other trojans, unreliable software download sources, and fake software updaters. Among them, the spam emails are the most commonly used sources to spread these infections. These mails generally include malicious files which once opened, triggers the installation of virus. The virulent files can be in several formats such as archive files (like RAR, ZIP), Microsoft Office documents, executable files (like .exe), JavaScript files, PDF documents.

Tips To Avoid Such Attacks:

Therefore, to prevent these intrusions, it is important to not open the irrelevant emails that come from unknown addresses as they might be sent with a purpose to proliferate malware. Such mails are often disguised as ‘important’, ‘urgent’ or ‘crucial’, so it is necessary to be very careful and scan the attachment of such mails with a reputable anti-malware tool. Furthermore, download any products or software from official pages and direct links only and avoid using the unreliable channels. But at the moment, you must remove Project Plague from the computer as soon as possible.

Antimalware Details And User Guide

Click Here For Windows Click Here For Mac

Important Note: This malware asks you to enable the web browser notifications. So, before you go the manual removal process, execute these steps.

Google Chrome (PC)

• Go to right upper corner of the screen and click on three dots to open the Menu button
• Select “Settings”. Scroll the mouse downward to choose “Advanced” option
• Go to “Privacy and Security” section by scrolling downward and then select “Content settings” and then “Notification” option
• Find each suspicious URLs and click on three dots on the right side and choose “Block” or “Remove” option

Google Chrome (Android)

• Go to right upper corner of the screen and click on three dots to open the menu button and then click on “Settings”
• Scroll down further to click on “site settings” and then press on “notifications” option
• In the newly opened window, choose each suspicious URLs one by one
• In the permission section, select “notification” and “Off” the toggle button

Mozilla Firefox

• On the right corner of the screen, you will notice three dots which is the “Menu” button
• Select “Options” and choose “Privacy and Security” in the toolbar present in the left side of the screen
• Slowly scroll down and go to “Permission” section then choose “Settings” option next to “Notifications”
• In the newly opened window, select all the suspicious URLs. Click on the drop-down menu and select “Block”

Internet Explorer

• In the Internet Explorer window, select the Gear button present on the right corner
• Choose “Internet Options”
• Select “Privacy” tab and then “Settings” under the “Pop-up Blocker” section
• Select all the suspicious URLs one by one and click on the “Remove” option

Microsoft Edge

• Open the Microsoft Edge and click on the three dots on the right corner of the screen to open the menu
• Scroll down and select “Settings”
• Scroll down further to choose “view advanced settings”
• In the “Website Permission” option, click on “Manage” option
• Click on switch under every suspicious URL

Safari (Mac):

• On the upper right side corner, click on “Safari” and then select “Preferences”
• Go to “website” tab and then choose “Notification” section on the left pane
• Search for the suspicious URLs and choose “Deny” option for each one of them

Manual Steps to Remove Project Plague:

Remove the related items of Project Plague using Control-Panel

Windows 7 Users

Click “Start” (the windows logo at the bottom left corner of the desktop screen), select “Control Panel”. Locate the “Programs” and then followed by clicking on “Uninstall Program”

Windows XP Users

Click “Start” and then choose “Settings” and then click “Control Panel”. Search and click on “Add or Remove Program’ option

Windows 10 and 8 Users:

Go to the lower left corner of the screen and right-click. In the “Quick Access” menu, choose “Control Panel”. In the newly opened window, choose “Program and Features”

Mac OSX Users

Click on “Finder” option. Choose “Application” in the newly opened screen. In the “Application” folder, drag the app to “Trash”. Right click on the Trash icon and then click on “Empty Trash”.

In the uninstall programs window, search for the PUAs. Choose all the unwanted and suspicious entries and click on “Uninstall” or “Remove”.

After you uninstall all the potentially unwanted program causing Project Plague issues, scan your computer with an anti-malware tool for any remaining PUPs and PUAs or possible malware infection. To scan the PC, use the recommended the anti-malware tool.

How to Remove Adware (Project Plague) from Internet Browsers

Delete malicious add-ons and extensions from IE

Click on the gear icon at the top right corner of Internet Explorer. Select “Manage Add-ons”. Search for any recently installed plug-ins or add-ons and click on “Remove”.

Additional Option

If you still face issues related to Project Plague removal, you can reset the Internet Explorer to its default setting.

Windows XP users: Press on “Start” and click “Run”. In the newly opened window, type “inetcpl.cpl” and click on the “Advanced” tab and then press on “Reset”.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 Users: Press the Windows logo, type inetcpl.cpl in the start search box and press enter. In the newly opened window, click on the “Advanced Tab” followed by “Reset” button.

For Windows 8 Users: Open IE and click on the “gear” icon. Choose “Internet Options”

Select the “Advanced” tab in the newly opened window

Press on “Reset” option

You have to press on the “Reset” button again to confirm that you really want to reset the IE

Remove Doubtful and Harmful Extension from Google Chrome

Go to menu of Google Chrome by pressing on three vertical dots and select on “More tools” and then “Extensions”. You can search for all the recently installed add-ons and remove all of them.

Optional Method

If the problems related to Project Plague still persists or you face any issue in removing, then it is advised that your reset the Google Chrome browse settings. Go to three dotted points at the top right corner and choose “Settings”. Scroll down bottom and click on “Advanced”.

At the bottom, notice the “Reset” option and click on it.

In the next opened window, confirm that you want to reset the Google Chrome settings by click on the “Reset” button.

Remove Project Plague plugins (including all other doubtful plug-ins) from Firefox Mozilla

Open the Firefox menu and select “Add-ons”. Click “Extensions”. Select all the recently installed browser plug-ins.

Optional Method

If you face problems in Project Plague removal then you have the option to rese the settings of Mozilla Firefox.

Open the browser (Mozilla Firefox) and click on the “menu” and then click on “Help”.

Choose “Troubleshooting Information”

In the newly opened pop-up window, click “Refresh Firefox” button

The next step is to confirm that really want to reset the Mozilla Firefox settings to its default by clicking on “Refresh Firefox” button.

Remove Malicious Extension from Safari

Open the Safari and go to its “Menu” and select “Preferences”.

Click on the “Extension” and select all the recently installed “Extensions” and then click on “Uninstall”.

Optional Method

Open the “Safari” and go menu. In the drop-down menu, choose “Clear History and Website Data”.

In the newly opened window, select “All History” and then press on “Clear History” option.

Delete Project Plague (malicious add-ons) from Microsoft Edge

Open Microsoft Edge and go to three horizontal dot icons at the top right corner of the browser. Select all the recently installed extensions and right click on the mouse to “uninstall”

Optional Method

Open the browser (Microsoft Edge) and select “Settings”

Next steps is to click on “Choose what to clear” button

Click on “show more” and then select everything and then press on “Clear” button.

Conclusion

In most cases, the PUPs and adware gets inside the marked PC through unsafe freeware downloads. It is advised that you should only choose developers website only while downloading any kind of free applications. Choose custom or advanced installation process so that you can trace the additional PUPs listed for installation along with the main program.