LOP, or Live Online Portal, is

malware Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, depri ...

that is installed on

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

. Lop.com is a web site owned by C2Media LTD. It is a

pay-per-click Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher (typically a search engine, website owner, or a network of websites) when the ad is clicked. Pay-per-click is usually ...

search portal where other websites will pay for each click to their sites via LOP. A method they used to get people to their site was to install a

browser hijacker Browser hijacking is a form of unwanted software that modifies a web browser's settings without a user's permission, to inject unwanted advertising into the user's browser. A browser hijacker may replace the existing home page, error page, or se ...

component on people's computers which would advertise their site through pop-ups. The installer could turn the user's

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

into a device with different links to lop.com. Older variants of LOP were quite predictable and installed

Browser Helper Object A Browser Helper Object (BHO) is a DLL module designed as a plugin for the Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser to provide added functionality. BHOs were introduced in October 1997 with the release of version 4 of Internet Explorer. Most B ...

s and startup entries with known names. Some later LOP variants used a string of pseudo-random words as their executable names and have been placing these executables in the user's application data directory. For example, there are LOP variants which call their file "meal dog house bone.exe".

Known programs that bundle LOP

*Patchou's MSN Messenger Plus *Warez P2P Client

References

Spyware {{malware-stub