Adware is malware that automatically shows advertisements that malicious actors can profit from.
In browser extensions, adware comes in many forms, and the most common versions of adware have the capability to:
- Replace the default search engine with their own and display searches on the affiliated web pages that display ads and search results.
- Inject ads/popups on all the web pages a user visits.
- Inject clickunder ads in the current browser sessions. They usually redirect to the affiliated web pages as soon as a user clicks on the website that has been injected with clickunder ads.
- Directly redirect a Google, Yandex, Bing, Yahoo search to the affiliated web pages.