MediaArena Malware

Trojan
by Violet George
May 14, 2023

MediaArena

MediaArena is a type of malicious code that is better known under the collective term of Trojans. Trojan horse viruses like MediaArena are among the most dangerous type of malware in existence and removing this piece is crucial to your system’s safety.

MediaArena
The range of devastation of the MediaArena malware goes from petty things like system crashes and account hacking to identity theft and financial crimes.

The MediaArena Malware

Trojan horse viruses such as the MediaArena malware are capable of causing a wide variety of different damage. Therefore, allowing the MediaArena malware to remain any longer than necessary could result in all sorts of harm.

As a matter of fact, the range of devastation goes from petty things like system crashes and account hacking to identity theft and financial crimes.

Below our experts have put together a detailed removal guide with the help of which all MediaArena victims will be able to remove this malware from their machines. However, keep in mind that this process does require relative tech-savviness as it involves dealing with system files. For this reason, if you don’t feel comfortable undertaking the removal of MediaArena on your own, we also have a handy malware removal tool present. In only a matter of a few clicks it can take care of the whole problem for you.

SUMMARY:

NameMediaArena
TypeTrojan
Detection Tool

Please follow all the steps below in order to remove MediaArena!

How to remove MediaArena

  1. First, click the Start Menu on your Windows PC.
  2. Type Programs and Settings in the Start Menu, click the first item, and find MediaArena in the programs list that would show up.
  3. Select MediaArena from the list and click on Uninstall.
  4. Follow the steps in the removal wizard.

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

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

If you have an iPhone virus, please use our iPhone Virus Removal guide.

What we suggest you do first is, check the list of programs that are presently installed on the infected device and uninstall any rogue software that you find there:

  • From the Start Menu, navigate to Control Panel ->>> Programs and Features ->>> Uninstall a Program.
  • Next, carefully search for unfamiliar programs or programs that have been installed recently and could be related to MediaArena.
  • If you find any of the programs suspicious then uninstall them if they turn out to be linked to MediaArena.
  • If a notification appears on your screen when you try to uninstall a specific questionable program prompting you to just alter it or repair it, make sure you choose NO and complete the steps from the removal wizard.

Remove MediaArena from Chrome

  1. Click on the three dots in the right upper corner
  2. Go to more tools
  3. Now select extensions
  4. Remove the MediaArena extension
  • Once you open Chrome, click on the three-dots icon to open the browser’s menu, go to More Tools/ More Options, and then to Extensions.
  • Again, find the items on that page that could be linked to MediaArena and/or that might be causing problems in the browser and delete them.
  • Afterwards, go to this folder: Computer > C: > Users > *Your User Account* > App Data > Local > Google > Chrome > User Data. In there, you will find a folder named Default – you should change its name to Backup Default and restart the PC.
  • Note that the App Data folder is normally hidden so you’d have to first make the hidden files and folders on your PC visible before you can access it.

How to get rid of MediaArena on FF/Edge/etc.

  1. Open the browser and select the menu icon.
  2. From the menu, click on the Add-ons button.
  3. Look for the MediaArena extension
  4. Get rid of MediaArena by removing it from extensions

If using Firefox:

  • Open Firefox
  • Select the three parallel lines menu and go to Add-ons.
  • Find the unwanted add-on and delete it from the browser – if there is more than one unwanted extension, remove all of them.
  • Go to the browser menu again, select Options, and then click on Home from the sidebar to the left.
  • Check the current addresses for the browser’s homepage and new-tab page and change them if they are currently set to address(es) you don’t know or trust.

If using MS Edge/IE:

  • Start Edge
  • Select the browser menu and go to Extensions.
  • Find and uninstall any Edge extensions that look undesirable and unwanted.
  • Select Settings from the browser menu and click on Appearance.
  • Check the new-tab page address of the browser and if it has been modified by “MediaArena” or another unwanted app, change it to an address that you’d want to be the browser’s new-tab page.

How to Delete MediaArena

  1. Open task manager
  2. Look for the MediaArena process
  3. Select it and click on End task
  4. Open the file location to delete MediaArena
  • Access the Task Manager by pressing together the Ctrl + Alt + Del keys and then selecting Task Manager.
  • Open Processes and there try to find a process with the name of the unwanted software. If you find it, select it with the right button of the mouse and click on the Open File Location option.
  • If you don’t see a “MediaArena” process in the Task Manager, look for another suspicious process with an unusual name. It is likely that the unwanted process would be using lots of RAM and CPU so pay attention to the number of resources each process is using.
  • Tip: If you think you have singled out the unwanted process but are not sure, it’s always a good idea to search for information about it on the Internet – this should give you a general idea if the process is a legitimate one from a regular program or from your OS or if it is indeed likely linked to the adware.
  • If you find another suspicious process, open its File Location too.
  • Once in the File Location folder for the suspicious process, start testing all of the files that are stored there by dragging them to our free online scanner available below.
  • Each file will be scanned with up to 64 antivirus programs to ensure maximum accuracy
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    • If the scanner finds malware in any of the files, return to the Processes tab in the Task Manager, select the suspected process, and then select the End Process option to quit it.
    • Go back to the folder where the files of that process are located and delete all of the files that you are allowed to delete. If all files get deleted normally, exit the folder and delete that folder too. If one or more of the files showed an error message when you tried to delete them, leave them for now and return to try to delete them again once you’ve completed the rest of the guide.

    How to Uninstall MediaArena

    1. Click on the home button
    2. Search for Startup Apps
    3. Look for MediaArena in there
    4. Uninstall MediaArena from Startup Apps by turning it off
    • Now you need to carefully search for and uninstall any MediaArena-related entries from the Registry. The easiest way to do this is to open the Registry Editor app (type Regedit in the windows search field and press Enter) and then open a Find dialog (CTRL+F key combination) where you have to type the name of the threat. 
    • Perform a search by clicking on the Find Next button and delete any detected results. Do this as many times as needed until no more results are found. 
    • After that, to ensure that there are no remaining entries lined to MediaArena in the Registry, go manually to the following directories and delete them:
    • HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Random Directory. 
    • HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run/Random
    • HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/Main/Random

    What is MediaArena?

    Trojans like MediaArena and PDFpower.exe are without competition the most numerous and widespread malware category on the internet. Up to 90% of all malicious infections that occur are due to Trojans. This is mainly due to two factors.
    First of all, Trojans like MediaArena are notorious for their stealth and ability to stay hidden over long periods of time. Hence, there’s no telling how long MediaArena had been in your system before you actually came to find out about it. A Trojan horse virus will typically hide very deep in your system and will therefore avoid detection. In addition, an infection of this type usually doesn’t have any symptoms that would signal the presence of an intruder.
    And then the second factor that has greatly contributed to the unbeaten popularity of Trojans is their multifunctionality. These types of viruses are capable of executing such a wide variety of malicious tasks, we couldn’t possibly cover them all within this article.


    Is MediaArena dangerous?

    We did already touch on what the potential consequences of a Trojan’s presence may be. But as for the means that these viruses can use to achieve their goals, these are just as varied. Anything from keystroke logging and tapping into microphones and webcams all the way to hijacking your entire traffic and rerouting it to the hackers’ servers goes.
    For this reason, as long as MediaArena is on your computer, you can never be sure who else may be seeing what you’re doing, both physically, as well as on your PC. Not to mention that software of this type is very commonly also used as a backdoor to let in other malicious code, like for example ransomware. And at the moment ransomware happens to be at the top of the list as far as levels of devastation go, so you can consider yourself very lucky to have detected MediaArena at all – hopefully before it’s too late.


    About the author

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    Violet George

    Violet is an active writer with a passion for all things cyber security. She enjoys helping victims of computer virus infections remove them and successfully deal with the aftermath of the attacks. But most importantly, Violet makes it her priority to spend time educating people on privacy issues and maintaining the safety of their computers. It is her firm belief that by spreading this information, she can empower web users to effectively protect their personal data and their devices from hackers and cybercriminals.

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