Hackers are watching you

Hackers are watching you

Hackers are watching you is a browser hijacker that is capable of infecting nearly any iOS-compatible browser, including Safari, Chrome, and others. The reason Hackers are watching you exists is to display different online advertisements and promotional materials inside these browsers.

Hackers are watching you

The “Hackers are watching you” message should be ignored if it pops up

If you have this app on your iPhone or iPad you may notice some improvements to the default settings of your browser. For example, the homepage URL may be replaced with an Hackers are watching you-related one and your search engine may be substituted by a new one without your approval.  

In addition to that, you may start seeing a continuous stream of aggressive web promotional materials during your surfing sessions. These materials may come in different shapes and sizes, from full-screen banners, small pop-ups on the sidebar, and different box notifications, to warning messages in plain text and various web links. Clicking on them may often redirect you to random web locations, which, may be potentially dangerous.

For some users, this could be a reason for security concerns. After all, malvertising is a common method that hackers use to distribute nasty threats like ransomware, Trojans, and other viruses.

The bad news is that if you want to remove the nagging ads and links, and restore the previous settings of your browser, it simply won’t work. As soon as you start your iOS browser, you’ll automatically be greeted by Hackers are watching you’s homepage and/or its sponsored search engine. The good news, though, is that all those unwanted browser alternations can vanish when you fully uninstall the responsible browser hijacker from your Apple device.

Hackers are watching you iPhone Removal

If you have an iPhone virus, continue with the guide below.

If you have an Android virus, please use our Android Malware Removal guide.

If you have a Mac virus, please use our How to remove Ads on Mac guide.

If you have a Windows virus, please use our Windows Virus Removal guide.

First you need to close all pop-ups that are currently open.

  • If the pop-up has a checkbox named “Don’t show more alerts from this webpage” click on the checkbox before closing the Ad.
  • If a Block Alerts button happens to appear after you shut down a pop-up on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch tab that button to stop receiving alerts from the same page.

In case that a pop-up fails to close after performing the above operations:

  • On your Mac you should make your Safari browser close forcibly by pressing Command-Option-Esc. Select Safari from the list of Apps and force close it. After you force close it you need to restart Safari, but please hold the shift button while it starts. This will prevent any pesky Ads from opening automatically.
  • On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch you can do the same by pressing the home button twice in a quick succession. You’ll then see a preview of all apps that have been recently used. Swipe left to find Safari and then swipe up on the app’s preview to close it forcibly In order to prevent Safari from opening unwanted windows on startup go to Settings->Safari and Clear History, as well as Website Data. This will also clear your browser history and cookies so keep that in mind and export them if you want to keep them.

Choose Preferences from the Safari menu. Then do the following:

  1. Select the Security icon and then click on “Block pop-up windows“. This should stop many types of pop-ups from appearing.
  1. Next check on your homepage and the settings for the search engines. Adware likes messing with those. We can not provide more specific instructions for this, as you may be using many different browsers.
    • Select the General icon and look at the Homepage field. It should either be empty or filled with the address of the Homepage you want.
    • Follow up on the Search icon. Again it should be either the default search engine or any that you have set for yourself. Note that in some versions of Safari these settings are found in the General panel/

Open Safari and click on the Extensions button. Note that Adware use extensions almost exclusively to inject the pop-up Ads into your browser. Any extension on this list that you do not remember installing yourself is likely planted there by the Adware. Remove ALL extensions you are unfamiliar with. 


About the author

Lidia Howler

Lidia is a web content creator with years of experience in the cyber-security sector. She helps readers with articles on malware removal and online security. Her strive for simplicity and well-researched information provides users with easy-to-follow It-related tips and step-by-step tutorials.

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