If this isn't reason to hunt down, prosecute, and throw the book away against spyware writers, I don't know what is...
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The CoolWebSearch Chronicles detail the variants of the browser hijacker known as CoolWebSearch (CWS). CoolWebSearch is known to be one of the most difficult spyware infections to detect and remove.
CoolWebSearch has evolved as a series of ‘variants’, each somewhat different than its predecessors, with the later variants significantly more complex to detect and remove. It is believed that the reason why new variants of CoolWebSearch are regularly released is to avoid or defeat attempts to remove it from a computer which it has infected. CWS is a robust infection that exhibits robust intelligence, technical prowess and a determination to survive removal attempts. CWS wants to live.
The difficulty of removing CWS from a user's system is significant. In the early variants, CWS was slightly tricky to remove, but it could be done, carefully, by a knowledgeable Windows user. However, CWS has stepped up the battle and recent variants are virtually impossible to remove manually. Some CWS variants even use methods of hiding and running themselves that had never been used before in any other spyware strains.
The chronological order in which the CWS variants appeared is detailed here, along with the approximate dates when they appeared online. However, since the programmers of CWS have released over two dozen versions of their hijacker in such a short time, and are crunching out new ones practically every week, this document might be out of date at times.
InterMute’s CWShredder tool to remove CoolWebSearch is updated regularly when new variants emerge.
Document last updated: March 29, 2005
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