Phonzy
If you suspect that a malicious program named Phonzy has found its way into your system, and is presently residing in it, you should definitely take the necessary precautions, and check your computer for any hidden threats. Phonzy is a representative of the infamous malware family known as Trojan Horses.
The Phonzy trojan have a very wide freedom of operation
If a Trojan Horse is in your system, the issues that it may cause are highly varied, and the effects of such an attack may be unpredictable, especially with such a new Trojan Horse as Phonzy. Our advice for you is to read the rest of the article from this page, and then try to complete the steps presented in the guide below. And if anything gets found in your system that the completion of the manual instructions isn’t enough to remove, you can also use the tested and reliable anti-malware tool we have linked down below.
The Phonzy Trojan
One important thing you need to understand about the Phonzy trojan is that once they get activated in the targeted machine, they usually have a very wide freedom of operation, which allows them to carry out all sorts of insidious tasks. The way the Phonzy trojan gains such freedom is by tricking the user into providing it with an Admin permission to introduce changes into the system.
In order to trick the user into providing an Admin permission, the Trojan disguises its carrier file as something people would be willing to open in their computers. An example of that is the installer of some piece of software – a useful program, or a popular game, for instance. Once the fake installer is opened, the OS asks the user if they are sure they want to allow the program to make changes in the system. If the user selects “Yes”, the hidden Trojan gains all the freedom it needs in order to complete its harmful activities. Such harmful activities may include espionage, theft of sensitive info, Ransomware distribution, starting new processes in the computer that force the machine to do certain things (conduct DDoS attacks, mine BitCoins, spread spam messages, etc.), and many, many more. Basically, Trojan Horses are the Swiss-Army knife of malware, and can be used in many different criminal schemes, which is also the reason why they are so widespread.
Dealing with the Trojan in a safe way
As we already pointed out in the start of this post, if you have Phonzy or Wup.exe inside your machine, it is advisable that you try out the guide from below. The steps provided there should help you with the quick and safe elimination of this nefarious threat, and if you use the recommended security tool, you will also get protection against future encounters with Trojan Horses, and other malware. Just remember that the best protection your computer could get is the one you give it with your caution and alertness when browsing the Internet. If you stay away from obscure and sketchy sites, and if you do not click on spam message attachments, or questionable web ads, the chances of landing another Trojan would be rather low.
SUMMARY:
| Name | Phonzy |
| Type | Trojan |
| Danger Level | High (Trojans are often used as a backdoor for Ransomware) |
| Symptoms | The symptoms of a Trojan infection may include system crashes, sudden errors, slow-downs, and more similar irregularities. |
| Distribution Method | Pirated content is the most typical distribution method for Trojans. |
| Detection Tool |
Remove Phonzy trojan
If you have a Windows virus, continue with the guide below.
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
Some of the steps will likely require you to exit the page. Bookmark it for later reference.
Reboot in Safe Mode (use this guide if you don’t know how to do it).
WARNING! READ CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING!
Press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC at the same time and go to the Processes Tab. Try to determine which processes are dangerous.
Right click on each of them and select Open File Location. Then scan the files with our free online virus scanner:
After you open their folder, end the processes that are infected, then delete their folders.
Note: If you are sure something is part of the infection – delete it, even if the scanner doesn’t flag it. No anti-virus program can detect all infections.
Hold together the Start Key and R. Type appwiz.cpl –> OK.
You are now in the Control Panel. Look for suspicious entries. Uninstall it/them. If you see a screen like this when you click Uninstall, choose NO:
Type msconfig in the search field and hit enter. A window will pop-up:
Startup —> Uncheck entries that have “Unknown” as Manufacturer or otherwise look suspicious.
- Remember this step – if you have reason to believe a bigger threat (like ransomware) is on your PC, check everything here.
Hold the Start Key and R – copy + paste the following and click OK:
notepad %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/hosts
A new file will open. If you are hacked, there will be a bunch of other IPs connected to you at the bottom. Look at the image below:
If there are suspicious IPs below “Localhost” – write to us in the comments.
Type Regedit in the windows search field and press Enter.
Once inside, press CTRL and F together and type the virus’s Name. Right click and delete any entries you find with a similar name. If they don’t show up this way, go manually to these directories and delete/uninstall them:
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER—-Software—–Random Directory. It could be any one of them – ask us if you can’t discern which ones are malicious.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER—-Software—Microsoft—-Windows—CurrentVersion—Run– Random
HKEY_CURRENT_USER—-Software—Microsoft—Internet Explorer—-Main—- Random
If the guide doesn’t help, download the anti-virus program we recommended or try our free online virus scanner. Also, you can always ask us in the comments for help!
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