Should I remove Educational Alt Key?

What percent of users and experts removed it?

82% remove it18% keep it

Overall Sentiment

Bad

What do people think about it?

(click star to rate)

How common is it?

Reach 0.0001%

Versions

Version	Distribution
1.0.0.0	100.00%

Educational Alt Key

Remove Educational Alt Key

What is Educational Alt Key?

This is a WinCheck/CMI (variant) adware/browser hijacker variant that injects code into the user's web browser (IE, Chrome and Firefox). It is known as an ad-injector, a malicious process that once inside the web browser will hijack existing advertisements of underlying web sites (not associated with the website itself). It will also inject new ads in white space on the site or images that have standard banner sizes. These ads are typically for promoting shopping discount coupons, ads for PC optimizers or bundled PUP offers, or malvertising since it runs on sketchy ad networks.This runs as a startup process called WinCheck in the user's startup registry (Run key) and will execute each time the computer is restarted and the user logs in.

How do you know if you are infected? First, if you have this program installed then this adware is most likely still running. Next, you see ads in the browser that say something like "Ads by WinCheck".

Overview

Upon installation and setup, it defines an auto-start registry entry which makes this program run on each Windows boot for all user logins. The main program executable is bnsf8318.exe. Typically most users end up uninstalling this just after a few days.

Possible malware installed by this program
Automatically starts with Windows
Displays unwanted advertisements
The experts agree, you should remove it!

Warning, multiple anti-virus scanners have detected possible malware in Educational Alt Key.

bnsf8318.exe (48ee58f95c98d57806e262bb8bd25a33) has been flagged by the following 15 scanners:
Anti-Virus software	Version	Detection
Lavasoft Ad-Aware	537	Gen:Variant.Mikey.12584
Agnitum Outpost	7.1.1	PUA.ConvertAd
AhnLab-V3	2015.05.07	Adware/Win32.AdService
ALYac	1.0.1.4	Gen:Variant.Mikey.12584
AVG	2016.0.3015	Generic_r
Bitdefender	1.0.20.1140	Gen:Variant.Mikey.12584
Comodo Security	22028	ApplicUnwnt
Emsisoft Anti-Malware	8.15.08.16.06	Gen:Variant.Mikey.12584
ESET-NOD32	9.11589	a variant of Win32/Adware.ConvertAd.KX
F-Secure	11.2015-16-08_1	Gen:Variant.Mikey.12584
G Data	15.8.25	Gen:Variant.Mikey.12584
MicroWorld-eScan	16.0.0.684	Gen:Variant.Mikey.12584
Panda Antivirus	15.08.16.06	Generic Suspicious
Symantec	8/16/2015 rev. 1	WS.Reputation
TrendMicro-HouseCall	7.2.228	TROJ_GEN.R0C1H09E315

View all 15 all detections

Program details

Installation folder: C:\users\user\appdata\local\4c4c4544-1429475411-4710-8043-c8c04f484731

Uninstaller: "C:\users\user\appdata\Local\4C4C4544-1429475411-4710-8043-C8C04F484731\uninstall.exe"

Files installed by Educational Alt Key

Program executable:	bnsf8318.exe (Malware detected)
Path:	C:\users\user\appdata\local\4c4c4544-1429475411-4710-8043-c8c04f484731\bnsf8318.exe
MD5:	48ee58f95c98d57806e262bb8bd25a33

Additional files:

Uninstall.exe

Behaviors exhibited

Startup File (All Users Run)

bnsf8318.exe is loaded in the all users (HKLM) registry as a startup file name 'WinCheck' which loads as C:\users\user\appdata\Local\4C4C4544-1429475411-4710-8043-C8C04F484731\bnsf8318.exe.

How do I remove Educational Alt Key?

You can uninstall Educational Alt Key from your computer by using the Add/Remove Program feature in the Window's Control Panel.

On the Start menu (for Windows 8, right-click the screen's bottom-left corner), click Control Panel, and then, under Programs, do one of the following:

Windows Vista/7/8/10: Click Uninstall a Program.
Windows XP: Click Add or Remove Programs.

When you find the program Educational Alt Key, click it, and then do one of the following:

Windows Vista/7/8/10: Click Uninstall.
Windows XP: Click the Remove or Change/Remove tab (to the right of the program).

Follow the prompts. A progress bar shows you how long it will take to remove Educational Alt Key.
If for some reason uninstallation fails, please install Microsoft's uninstall fixer utility which will help fix problems with programs that can't be uninstalled at support.microsoft.com.