Manual Removal Guide for PU.SocialPrivacy

The following instructions have been created to help you to get rid of "PU.SocialPrivacy" manually.
Use this guide at your own risk; software should usually be better suited to remove malware, since it is able to look deeper.

If this guide was helpful to you, please consider donating towards this site.

Threat Details:

Categories:

• pups
• bho

Description:

PU.SocialPrivacy installs a Browser Helper Object (BHO) in Firefox and Chrome.

Removal Instructions:

Autorun:

Please use Spybot-S&D, RunAlyzer or msconfig.exe to remove the following autorun entries.

• Entries named "dnsshield" and pointing to "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy DNS\dnswatch.exe".

Installed Software List:

You can try to uninstall products with the names listed below; for items identified by other properties or to avoid malware getting active again on uninstallation, use Spybot-S&D or RunAlyzer to locate and get rid of these entries.

• Products that have a key or property named "dnsshield".
• Products that have a key or property named "sp@sp.com".

Files:

Please use Windows Explorer or another file manager of your choice to locate and delete these files.

• The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy DNS\dnswatch.exe".
• The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy DNS\Uninstall.exe".
• The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy\code.zip".
• The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy\FF\chrome.manifest".
• The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy\FF\chrome\content\icon.png".
• The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy\FF\chrome\content\main.js".
• The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy\FF\chrome\content\overlay.xul".
• The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy\FF\install.rdf".
• The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy\r.log".
• The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy\sp.dll".
• The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy\Uninstall.exe".

Make sure you set your file manager to display hidden and system files. If PU.SocialPrivacy uses rootkit technologies, use the rootkit scanner integrated into Spybot-S&D 2.x or our Total Commander anti-rootkit plugins.
You will have to use a global search for files without a name specified. Be extra careful, because just the name might not be enough to identify files!

Important: There are more files that cannot be safely described in simple words. Please use Spybot-S&D to remove them.

Folders:

Please use Windows Explorer or another file manager of your choice to locate and delete these folders.

• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy DNS".
• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy\FF\chrome\content".
• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy\FF\chrome".
• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy\FF".
• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Social Privacy".
• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\sp".

Make sure you set your file manager to display hidden and system files. If PU.SocialPrivacy uses rootkit technologies, use our RootAlyzer or our Total Commander anti-rootkit plugins.
You will have to use a global search for files without a name specified. Be extra careful, because just the name might not be enough to identify folders!

Registry:

You can use regedit.exe (included in Windows) to locate and delete these registry entries.

• Delete the registry key "{91FBEA5C-E3C7-42EA-8C2B-B168189AB5BE}" at "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\".
• Delete the registry key "{91FBEA5C-E3C7-42EA-8C2B-B168189AB5BE}" at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Browser Helper Objects\".
• Delete the registry key "{DCB1CD02-42FC-4447-B833-6405CE328D62}" at "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\".
• Delete the registry value "sp2@sp.com" at "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mozilla\Firefox\Extensions\".

If PU.SocialPrivacy uses rootkit technologies, use our RegAlyzer, RootAlyzer or our Total Commander anti-rootkit plugins.

Final Words:

If neither Spybot-S&D nor self help did resolve the issue or you would prefer one on one help,

1. Please read these instructions before requesting assistance,
2. Then start your own thread in the Malware Removal Forum where a volunteer analyst will advise you as soon as available.