Yahoo Assistant, formerly named 3721 Internet Assistant, is a

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 BH ...

for

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...

developed by Beijing 3721 Technology Co. Ltd, and was renamed to Yahoo Assistant after Beijing 3721 Technology was acquired by

Yahoo Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...

. 3721 Internet Assistant, together with 3721 Chinese Keywords, are known as

Spyware Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is any malware that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user by violating their privacy, endangering their device's securit ...

by Microsoft AntiSpyware, and

malware Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...

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 searc ...

by some others, such as Panda Antivirus. However, Yahoo China filed a lawsuit against Beijing Sanjiwuxian Internet Technology Co. Ltd, the developer of the 360Safe

antispyware Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is any malware that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user by violating their privacy, endangering their device's security, ...

for identifying Yahoo Assistant as

in 360Safe.

Distribution

3721 Internet Assistant was originally released as a normal client-server application. However, it turned to use

ActiveX ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide W ...

technology to install itself on a client system later and was also shipped with many sharewares as default install options. 3721 Internet Assistant was also blamed for its use of a flaw in Microsoft Internet Explorer to install itself automatically when a user is browsing an array of 3721 sponsored personal and commercial websites with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Yahoo! Assistant is also included in 3721 Chinese Keywords and Yahoo! Mail Express, but sometimes the whole package of Internet Assistant, Chinese Keywords and Mail Express is named "Yahoo Assistant" in some sharewares. The company says the automatic installation ended in September 2005 and now asks user's permission before installing, however, CA Inc. reported that during Yahoo! Assistant installation, extra components are installed without obtaining user's consent. This software is also bundled with the Chinese client of th
CGA Gaming platform
.

Features

3721 claims 3721 Internet Assistant includes many useful features, such as IE setting repair, security shield, removal of internet history information and blocking ads. However, it installs various windows hooks that will slow down the system, and tries to install the hooks repeatedly. Some users also reported that Internet Assistant buttons reappeared immediately after their manual removal using Internet Explorer customization features, and

Blue Screen of Death The blue screen of death (BSoD) or blue screen error, blue screen, fatal error, bugcheck, and officially known as a stop erroris a fatal system error, critical error screen displayed by the Microsoft Windows operating systems to indicate a cr ...

appeared when using Internet Assistant.

Internet Explorer extension hijacking

3721 Internet Assistant will enable/disable other Internet Explorer extensions, except the advertisement links and extensions installed by Yahoo products.

Concealment and resistance to user termination

3721 Internet Assistant runs under multiple rundll32.exe processes. If one of them is killed in

Windows Task Manager Task Manager, previously known as Windows Task Manager, is a task manager, system monitor, and startup manager included with Microsoft Windows systems. It provides information about computer performance and running software, including names of ...

, it will immediately be restarted by others, thereby resisting efforts by a user to terminate the application. A driver named CnsMinKP.sys is installed with 3721 Internet Assistant, along with several hidden

Windows service In Windows NT operating systems, a Windows service is a computer program that operates in the background. It is similar in concept to a Unix daemon. A Windows service must conform to the interface rules and protocols of the Service Control Manag ...

s. After uninstallation, several files are left on the system, but they are not visible in

Windows Explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application and default desktop environment that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user i ...

. They can be found by using tools such as

Total Commander __NOTOC__ Total Commander is an orthodox file manager, i.e. it features two file list panels (selectable via tab key) and a Command-line interface, command line. It supports Tab (interface), multiple tabs for each panel. Total Commander is deve ...

or in the DOS box.

Removal of antispyware program

Yahoo Assistant also removes 360Safe, an

program of a competitor, without notifying the user. On August 15, 2007, a Beijing court ruled this behavior as

unfair competition Anti-competitive practices are business or government practices that prevent or reduce competition in a market. Antitrust laws ensure businesses do not engage in competitive practices that harm other, usually smaller, businesses or consumers. ...

Uninstall

3721 Internet Assistant, together with 3721 Chinese Keywords, according to

Interfax Interfax () is a Russian news agency. The agency is owned by Interfax News Agency joint-stock company and is headquartered in Moscow. History As the first non-governmental channel of political and economic information about the USSR, Interfax ...

, are regarded by Chinese internet users as "Hooligan" or "Zombie" applications. The uninstall program of the pair provided by 3721 simply redirects users to the 3721 website (in Simplified Chinese thus not recognizable except by Chinese speakers), and the default option of the web page is to keep 3721 Internet Assistant after the uninstallation. After following the web uninstallation wizard and a reboot, many 3721 files will still remain on the client system. The pair were ranked #1 by

Beijing Association of Online Media Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

in its list of Chinese

Malware Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...

at 2005.

References

External links

an introduction on ca.com
{{Yahoo! Inc. Rootkits

Assistant Assistant may refer to: * Assistant (by Speaktoit), a virtual assistant app for smartphones * Assistant (software), a software tool to assist in computer configuration * Google Assistant, a virtual assistant by Google * ''The Assistant'' (TV seri ...