Shortlinks.su Virus

Trojan
by Violet George
November 10, 2022

Shortlinks.su

A very problematic Trojan horse infection called Shortlinks.su has recently been reported to our security team. Shortlinks.su uses various transmitters to infect as many web users as possible.

Shortlinks.su

But the one thing we will be focusing in the next write-up is a phishing scheme that may be linked to this infection. That’s why, in case your email inbox has been getting spammed by strange messages from a self-proclaimed hacker in the recent days/weeks , then you definitely need to read the information that follows and take actions to check your system for a potential contamination with Shortlinks.su.

British Airways’ Black Friday offer, which misleadingly claims that the carrier is giving away golden tickets, is a scam. The fraudulent British Airways giveaway contains a link that leads to a phishing website called shortlinks.su. The shortlinks.su website will attempt to trick visitors into completing surveys that steal personal information, and may go to other phishing websites that steal sensitive financial information. Therefore, if you have been tricked into revealing your financial information through the British Airways scam, please contact your bank for assistance.

SUMMARY:

NameShortlinks.su
TypeTrojan
Detection Tool

Remove Shortlinks.su Virus Scam

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

Please follow all the steps below in order to remove Shortlinks.su!

How to remove Shortlinks.su

  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 Shortlinks.su in the programs list that would show up.
  3. Select Shortlinks.su from the list and click on Uninstall.
  4. Follow the steps in the removal wizard.

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 Shortlinks.su.
  • If you find any of the programs suspicious then uninstall them if they turn out to be linked to Shortlinks.su.
  • 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 Shortlinks.su 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 Shortlinks.su 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 Shortlinks.su 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 Shortlinks.su 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 Shortlinks.su extension
  4. Get rid of Shortlinks.su 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 “Shortlinks.su” or another unwanted app, change it to an address that you’d want to be the browser’s new-tab page.

How to Delete Shortlinks.su

  1. Open task manager
  2. Look for the Shortlinks.su process
  3. Select it and click on End task
  4. Open the file location to delete Shortlinks.su
  • 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 “Shortlinks.su” 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
    This scanner is free and will always remain free for our website's users.
    This file is not matched with any known malware in the database. You can either do a full real-time scan of the file or skip it to upload a new file. Doing a full scan with 64 antivirus programs can take up to 3-4 minutes per file.
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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 Shortlinks.su

    1. Click on the home button
    2. Search for Startup Apps
    3. Look for Shortlinks.su in there
    4. Uninstall Shortlinks.su from Startup Apps by turning it off
    • Now you need to carefully search for and uninstall any Hostingcloud. racing-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 Shortlinks.su 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
    Is Shortlinks.su a virus?

    Receiving such a massage alone could be scary enough but things may get even worse if you indeed have been compromised by malware you don’t know of. That’s why it is very important to make two things. First, you should not take all that is written in the scam as undisputed truth. In fact, in most of the cases, the crooks simply try to bluff about a non-existing giveaway in order to make some quick money out of naïve users. That being said, you should still not ignore the possibility of actual contamination with some stealthy and invisible malware. For this reason, your second action should be to run a full scan of your entire computer with a reliable security program and remove anything that looks suspicious.

    Is Shortlinks.su dangerous?

    In case you don’t have a professional security program that you can use for that, it is always a good idea to double check the PC with some advanced security tool such as the one on this page. Should the scan results detect Shortlinks.su on your machine, do not hesitate to remove it immediately, either by proceeding with the steps that the program offers or by using the instructions in the removal guide below.
    A close encounter with a Trojan horse like this one and Tinyurl4.ru may lead to serious system damage, instability, different software issues as well as theft of personal information, espionage and even blackmailing (this time with actual leverage that the harassers have on you). Basically, all the data that you keep on the attacked computer will be put under danger. That’s why it is of crucial importance that you find and remove Shortlinks.su as soon as possible as this will save your machine from potentially irreparable damage.


    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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