Z.moatads.com

Z.moatads.com is an advertising tracking domain: a site that provides view-related analytical data to its advertising affiliates. No analyses of Z.moatads.com's pages have shown any signs of its hosting harmful content, but malware experts have noted incidents with Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) redirecting Web surfers to this website. Removing Z.moatads.com hijackers, adware and other threats that may modify your browsing settings automatically always should be done with the appropriate anti-adware and anti-malware products as soon as possible.

Advertising Analytics at a Potentially High Cost

Z.moatads.com is one of the numerous domains trafficking in delivering detailed Web traffic data to advertisers, allowing them to determine the most efficient advertisement content with metrics specific to their business models. However, this industry may benefit from the creation of adware, browser hijackers and other, browser-modifying threats that may promote their ads no matter if the computer user wants it or not, invalidating the analytics data in the process. Malware experts first saw evidence of such campaigns related to Z.moatads.com surfacing in late 2015.

Symptoms to watch for include:

• Your browser may generate pop-up windows for Z.moatads.com automatically.
• New tabs for Z.moatads.com may load whenever you launch your browser or navigate to an unrelated site.
• Your browser may redirect itself to Z.moatads.com from a search page or default homepage; these browser hijackings normally bypass any built-in browser settings.

Z.moatads.com hijackers have no known ties to toolbars or other, obvious browser add-ons, and may implement their changes without providing an interface for disabling or managing these 'features.'

Pulling Your Browser out of a Moat of Advertisements

Even though Z.moatads.com isn't classifiable as a threatening website, its advertising content may be as variable as that of any other small company's advertising network. Some cases of redirects to Z.moatads.com or exposure to Z.moatads.com pop-ups may instigate other security problems besides browser hijackings. The most frequent of these risks include contact with information-collecting phishing tactics and script-based threat downloaders.

You can mitigate the above risks by having appropriate browser security standards. Proper steps can include disabling scripts when they're unnecessary, keeping all software fully patched, and using security products that include Web-surfing safety measures (such as blacklisting unsafe domains).

Into the current year, malware experts have verified Z.moatads.com hijackers targeting the Firefox browser, even though other browsers may be open to similar attacks. Z.moatads.com hijackers have no known ties to toolbars or other, obvious browser add-ons, and malware experts have yet to find their preferred installation strategies. However, most similar threats may use bundles with other applications downloaded from free sources.

Like any program making automatic changes and hiding its presence, a Z.moatads.com hijacker may be a threat to your PC's safety. Always use your dedicated security products for removing Z.moatads.com hijackers and other add-ons, rather than trying to undo their changes or reinstall Firefox, yourself.