75 lines
4.6 KiB
HTML
75 lines
4.6 KiB
HTML
<!--Old Style-->
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
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<html lang=”en-us”>
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<head>
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="../style.css">
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<meta charset="UTF-8">
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<title>PowerISO — Spyware Watchdog</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
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<img src="../images/poweriso_logo.png" alt="PowerISO logo">
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<h1>PowerISO</h1>
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<p>
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PowerISO is a CD / DVD / BD image file processing tool.
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</p>
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<h2>Spyware Level: <font color="yellow">Medium</font></h2>
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<p>
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The PowerISO software itself, after you have installed it, does not seem to have a lot of serious privacy problems and would probably be listed
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as "Not Spyware" or "Low". However, downloading and installing this software requires careful attention because it attempts to install several spyware
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programs and otherwise violates your privacy at every step of the installation process. So it's received this higher rating because of how bad this
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process is for user privacy. Also, keep in mind that this is for the free version of the software and the paid version might be slightly better for
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user privacy, however because there are so many problems with the free version you would have to do your own tests to make sure.
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</p>
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<p>
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To talk more specifically about the software itself, it will check off "automatically check for updates" by default in the installer which is bad, but you can uncheck it.
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When I actually ran it after installing, it did not make any unsolicited requests so it didn't have any problems. When I asked it to check for updates,
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it used HTTP to talk to some server. HTTP is a little excessive and not good for privacy. But at least it doesn't phone home or anything, which is really
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not something I expected after seeing the absolute disregard for user privacy when trying to install the program.
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</p>
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<p>
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Microsoft Network Monitor 3.4, ProcMon, and NoScript were used to check this program and it's installation process for spyware.
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</p>
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<h3>Unsolicited connections in installation process</h3>
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<p>
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When you try to download this program off of the developer's website (<a href="http://www.poweriso.com/download.php">http://www.poweriso.com/download.php</a>), the download link,
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which appears to be a link to: <code>http://www.fettcedob-nero.com/vf6o1o5/PowerISO7-x64.exe</code>, is actually a redirect to a website that tries to run a third
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party script (spyware) on your browser.
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</p>
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<img class="screenshot" src="../images/piso_scripts.png" alt="PowerISO install button running scripts caught by NoScript.">
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<h3>Attempting to install a Chrome extension</h3>
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<p>
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I could not manage to download this program with a Firefox-based browser, so I used a Chrome-Based browser to download it. Once I had enabled JavaScript and executed all of the
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spyware involved, it attempted to get me to install this Chrome extension:
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</p>
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<img class="screenshot" src="../images/piso_extension.png" alt="PowerISO attempt to install a Chrome extension">
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<p>
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While this is not a review of search manager, it's worth noting that this extension is known adware at least, and who knows what else it does. Any searches about this
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extension should explain this. But at the very least, assuming that you didn't install any spyware yet, you at least have the PowerISO installer...
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</p>
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<h3>Attempts to install spyware in the PowerISO installer</h3>
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<p>
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Once you run the PowerISO installer, it will attempt to install the following programs on your computer:
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</p>
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<img class="screenshot" src="../images/PowerISO7-x64_1.png" alt="PowerISO attempt to install spyware 1">
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<img class="screenshot" src="../images/PowerISO7-x64_2.png" alt="PowerISO attempt to install spyware 2">
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<p>
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Which both look very shady. <a href="../articles/cdex.html">CDex</a> also seems to be using this same tactic and installer software.<br>
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Now, to top it all off, the PowerISO installer will also phone home to some Amazon Servers:
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</p>
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<img class="screenshot" src="../images/piso_installer_phone_home.png" alt="PowerISO installer phoning home">
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<hr>
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<center>
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<p><b>
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This article was created on 10/7/2018
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</b></p>
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<p>
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If you want to edit this article, or contribute your own article(s), visit us at the git repo on <a href="https://codeberg.org/shadow/SpywareWatchdog">Codeberg</a>. All contributions must be licensed under the CC0 license to be accepted.
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</p>
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<a href="../LICENSE.txt"><img class="icon" src="../images/cc0.png" alt="CC0 License"></a>
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<p><a href="../articles/index.html">Back to catalog</a></p>
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</center>
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</body>
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</html>
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