Do you know what Erdey.exe is?
If you find Erdey.exe on your system, it can mean only one thing: Your system has been penetrated by a browser hijacker. As a matter of fact, our researchers have found after careful testing in our internal lab that this malicious executable file comes with browser hijackers that belong to the infamous Elex family, including LuckySearch123.com, Amisites.com, and Nuesearch.com to mention just a few. The presence of this .exe file could mean that you are exposed to potentially unreliable third-party contents that can hit your screen through modified search results or third-party ads displayed on the main search pages of these browser hijackers. This malicious program might be responsible for updates but it may as well show third-party ads while you are browsing the web. If you want to keep your system clean and safe for you to use, we recommend that you remove Erdey.exe and all other related threat sources you may find after a proper malware scan. For more details, please read our full report on this browser hijacker.
Our research shows that there are a couple of methods for this annoying hijacker to show up on your system. It is also quite likely that you never saw it coming. Although browser hijackers are mostly spread in freeware bundles promoted by adware programs and questionable file-sharing and online gambling websites, this malicious program may also be distributed in spam and junk mails as well. You need to be very careful with your clicks. While you are surfing the web, there are a lot of opportunities for you to encounter third-party advertising practically anywhere you go now. As we have mentioned, this can be made worse when your system is already infected with adware programs. This would mean a constant flow of annoying and unsafe commercials. You may even click on these accidentally because some of them may look very tempting to you. But you can see similar ads when you visit suspicious websites where ads can be very deceiving and disguised as buttons (download and next-page), for example. This is why we keep emphasizing that you should always use official and reliable sources for downloading software and updates, too. As you can see, it is very easy to end up with a whole bundle of malware threats on your computer. Therefore, we suggest that you delete Erdey.exe right now and scan your system with a decent malware scanner to detect all other possibly risky applications as well.
Getting infected with malware is all about clicking on the wrong content most of the time. For example, when you open a spam or junk mail and you find an attached file. You may be led to believe that this file is important for you to see and this attachment appears to be an image or a document file. However, in this case, it is a malicious executable file. This is how much more dangerous threats are also spread called ransomware programs. We suggest that you always make sure that the mail you open is from trustworthy source and the attachment is really meant for you. Running such an attached file could have devastating consequences. While in this case you can still delete Erdey.exe from your system without any major damage, if this were a ransomware infection, you could lose all your files. This is one of the reasons why it pays to use a powerful malware removal application to safeguard your computer.
Once this browser hijacker is active on your system, this malicious executable runs in the background and could do questionable activities. In order for you to stop its operations, you need to kill the malicious process, "Erdey.exe," via Task Manager. Our researchers say that this program could be responsible for certain updates regarding the browser hijacker but it could also start displaying third-party advertisements. If you have seen Elex family search pages, you may have noticed that there could be commercials on the main page as well as hidden among the search results provided by these browser hijackers. The problem is that cyber crooks can exploit such infections to promote their corrupt links and thus lure victims to their fake websites. Since you could easily lose money in an online scam or infect your computer with more malware programs this way, we advise you to remove Erdey.exe ASAP.
In order to eliminate this threat source, it is advisable to remove the browser hijacker that could have brought this executable on board. Our experience shows that in the case of Elex family browser hijackers, it could be enough to restore the home page setting in your affected browsers. After it is done, you can check your "%PROGRAMFILES%" or "%Program Files(x86)%" folder for a random-name subfolder that contains the Erdey.exe file. If you need assistance with these steps, please use our guide below. If you want to avoid similar and more dangerous hits as well, we suggest that you consider installing a reliable anti-malware program, such as SpyHunter.
Remove the browser hijacker
Mozilla Firefox
- Launch your browser and tap Alt+T.
- Choose Options and then go to the General menu.
- Overwrite the URL in the Home Page section.
- Restart your browser.
Google Chrome
- Launch your browser and tap Alt+F.
- Go to Settings and then scroll to the On Startup section.
- Mark Open a specific page or set of pages and click Set pages.
- Edit the URL in the Startup page section and click OK.
- Restart your browser.
Internet Explorer
- Launch your browser and tap Alt+T.
- Select Internet options and then choose the General tab.
- Edit the URL in the Home Page section and click OK.
- Restart your browser.
How to remove Erdey.exe from Windows
- Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to launch Task Manager.
- Locate the malicious process called Erdey.exe and press End task.
- Exit the Task Manager.
- Press Win+E.
- Locate and bin Erdey.exe (it could be in a random folder in %PROGRAMFILES% or %Program Files(x86)%, e.g., "%PROGRAMFILES%\Kibalecefa\erdey.exe").
- Empty your Recycle Bin.
- Restart your computer.
In non-techie terms:
Erdey.exe is a malicious executable file that can appear on your system after it gets infected with an Elex family browser hijacker, such as LuckySearch123.com. In other words, if you find Erdey.exe on your computer, you may also find at least one browser hijacker on board. What's more, it is quite rare that hijackers are distributed all alone. In fact, it is more likely that this browser hijacker infiltrated your system together with other malware threats, such as adware programs, fake alerts, Trojans, and so on. This clearly means that your system could be struggling with several malicious programs right now. This executable might display third-party ads in your browsers, which may also present a threat source. One click on an unreliable third-party ad could redirect you to malicious websites or you could download further infections as well. This is why we believe that you should remove Erdey.exe and all related hijackers and malware threats. If you are not the manual type of a computer user, we advise you to use a professional anti-malware program to be on the safe side.