How to stop “Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device” pop-up scam

What is “Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device” pop-up scam

Many users have stumbled upon the “Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device” pop-up scam after downloading and executing a malicious installer from the web. While there is no exact information on what this installer was disguised as, victims of it could attempt downloading some pirated software, cracking tools, ostensibly legitimate system updates, or other kinds of forged content from unofficial and dubious websites. The inspected malicious installer promoting the pop-up scam also ran stealth installation of browser hijackers (such as CovidDash), and other dubious software without users’ consent.

The “Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device” message opens in a pop-up window after users execute the malicious installer. It pretends to be by Microsoft and claims that the examined device has been disconnected from the internet due to suspicious network traffic that was detected within the system. To restore the network connection and allegedly resolve the traffic problem, victims are asked to scan the displayed QR code and verify their identity by inputting some information. Please note that scanning the QR code leads to a phishing website (0zpt4.za.com) that instructs victims to click the “Continue” button in order to confirm identity. From there, users are tricked into disclosing their credit card credentials (e.g., card number, cardholder’s name, CVV code, home address, etc.). The result of sharing sensitive information on phishing websites is that it will be likely abused by cybercriminals to perform fraudulent purchases, sell victims’ identities, and other malicious actions.

Thus, never trust such websites and close them immediately. If you became a victim of this or any similar scam and entered your card/other information correctly, make sure to take the appropriate steps and contact bank support in order to protect your funds from getting abused. Various scam campaigns come in different disguises and techniques used to fool inexperienced users. Other scam messages can be delivered to users in e-mail messages where they attempt to extort some sensitive information (through phishing links) or make users install some malware (via malicious attachments). Therefore, pay extra caution to what you download and receive on the web. Never trust potentially suspicious information and download software only from trustworthy and official pages. If you experienced the “Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device” pop-up scam, make sure to follow our guide below to make sure your system is safe and not infected with anything.

How “Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device” pop-up scam infected your computer

As mentioned, the “Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device” scam is often promoted by a malicious installer. However, besides that, users can appear on phishing pages (like 0zpt4.za.com) after clicking dubious ads, buttons, links, or other graphical content on shady third-party websites. Such websites are usually associated with untrustworthy advertising networks, allowing developers to earn commissioned revenues on suspicious redirects. In addition, dubious redirects may also lead to landing pages that trick users into permitting dubious push notifications by displaying fake call-to-action messages, such as “Click Allow to verify that you are not a robot”, “Click Allow to continue watching”, “Click Allow to download a file”, and so forth. If allowed, users’ desktops’ will most likely be bombarded by multiple spam pop-ups, which might promote redirects to various scams or pages with malicious software.

Also, users may forcefully be redirected to phishing or unwanted pages if their system is infected with adware or some browser hijacker. Software of this type is known to cause random redirects to suspicious web pages as well. And last but not least, many spam campaigns are distributed using e-mail messages. Users can unexpectedly receive an e-mail letter asking to open some malicious attachments (disguised as MS Office documents, PDFs, Executables, Archives, JavaScript files, etc.) or follow a phishing link. Avoid interacting with content that looks suspicious and stay away from using unofficial/pirated resources for software downloads. Read our guide to learn more about protection against such threats in the future.

1. Download Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device Removal Tool
2. Remove/Uninstall programs causing Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device from Control Panel and Applications
3. Remove Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device-related extensions from browsers
4. Reset browser search and homepage settings
5. Block Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device
6. How to protect from threats causing Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device

Remove Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device virus manually for free

Here is the manual step-by-step tutorial for full Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device virus removal from your computer. This works 99% and was checked with the latest versions of operating systems with the latest updates and browser versions.

Remove program causing Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device from Control Panel or Applications

To start removing program, that may be a reason for Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device you should uninstall it using Control Panel. It can be present by different random names, just search for recently installed, unknown or suspicious app. It should uninstall correctly, however, we recommend you to use IObit Uninstaller to clean leftover items after uninstalling. Here are instructions for Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 and Mac.

Remove app causing Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device from Mac:

1. In the Finder sidebar, click Applications.
2. Unwanted program might have an Uninstaller.
3. Otherwise, drag unwanted program from the Applications folder to the Trash (located at the end of the Dock).
4. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash.

Remove program, that may cause Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device from Windows XP:

1. Click on Start button.
2. Choose Control Panel.
3. Click Add or Remove Programs.
4. Find unwanted program or other recently installed suspicious program.
5. Click Uninstall.

Remove program, that may cause Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device from Windows 7:

1. Click Start button.
2. Then go to Control Panel.
3. Click Uninstall a Program.
4. Find unwanted program or other recently installed suspicious program and click Uninstall.

Remove program, that may cause Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device from Windows 8:

1. Hover mouse pointer to the bottom-right corner to see Menu.
2. Click Search.
3. After that click Apps.
4. Then Control Panel.
5. Click Uninstall a Program under Programs.
6. Find unwanted program or other recently installed suspicious program, click Uninstall.

Remove program, that may cause Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device from Windows 10:

There are 2 ways to uninstall program, that may cause Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device from Windows 10

Way one

1. Click on the Start button.
2. In opened menu choose Settings.
3. Click on the System tile.
4. Click Apps & features and locate unwanted program or other recently installed suspicious program in the list.
5. Click on it and then click Uninstall button near it.

Way two (classic)

1. Right-click on the Start button.
2. In opened menu choose Programs and Features.
3. Locate unwanted program or other recently installed suspicious program in the list.
4. Click on it and then click Uninstall button above.

Remove app, that may cause Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device from iOS:

1. Carefully inspect all apps on your iOS device.
2. Find unnecessary, unwanted or suspicious ones.
3. Tap on unwanted app and hold until additional menu appears.
4. Tap Delete App in opened menu.

Remove app, that may cause Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device from Android:

1. Open the Google Play Store and choose My apps & games
2. Carefully inspect all apps on your Android device and find unnecessary, unwanted or suspicious ones.
3. Tap on unwanted app and tap Uninstall button.

Cannot uninstall program, that may cause Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device

In some cases, suspicious application won’t uninstall and gives you a message that “You do not have sufficient access to uninstall “Program Name”. Please, contact your system administrator” when you try to remove it from Control Panel or “Access denied” error when removing the folder and files of this app. This happens because the process or service does not allow you to do it. In this case, I will recommend you to use SpyHunter 5 or Malwarebytes or uninstall unwanted program in Safe Mode. To boot in Safe Mode do the following:

1. Reboot your computer.
2. While it starts booting press F8 button.
3. This will open Advanced Boot Options menu.
4. Choose Safe Mode and wait until Windows loads.
5. Go to Control Panel > Uninstall a program and remove unwanted program or other recently installed suspicious program

>> See detailed instructions and video tutorial on how to boot in Safe Mode

and for Mac:

If you can’t uninstall app causing Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device using instructions above, or it keeps coming back, you can use free AppCleaner for Mac to remove all residual data and libraries of unwanted application. Follow instructions below:

1. Download free AppCleaner.
2. Drag unwanted app from Applications folder to AppCleaner window.
3. Choose files and folders you want to remove along with Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device.
4. Click Delete button.

Remove malicious add-ons from your browsers

Uninstalling programs, that generate Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device from Control Panel often does not bring the desired effect. It sometimes has browser extension and it may still be active in Safari, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox. Here are instructions on how to remove extensions causing Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device from your browsers manually.

Safari:

1. Start Safari on your Mac, click Safari to open drop-down menu and choose Preferences
2. Click Extensions tab.
3. Find suspicious extension.
4. Click Uninstall button to remove it.

Google Chrome:

1. Start Google Chrome browser
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) chrome://extensions.
3. Find suspicious extension.
4. Click the trash can icon to remove them.
5. Also remove other suspicious extensions from the list.

Mozilla Firefox:

1. Start Mozilla Firefox browser.
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) about:addons.
3. Choose suspicious extension.
4. Click Disable or Remove button.
5. Remove all suspicious extensions from the list.

Internet Explorer (9, 10, 11):

Note: There is no feature to remove browser extensions from browser in latest version of Internet Explorer. To remove suspicious add-on from Internet Explorer, please, perform instructions for uninstalling the program from Control Panel. To disable the suspicious add-on, please, do the following:

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click on gear/asterisk icon in the top-right corner.
3. In opened menu Manage Add-ons.
4. Select Toolbars and Extensions.
5. Click Disable or Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device extension.
6. Also disable other suspicious extensions from the list.

Reset browsers settings (homepage, default search)

Here is an instruction to reset your browser’s homepage, new tab and search engine to default values and delete history, cache, and cookies.

Reset Safari on Mac:

1. Start Safari on your Mac, click Safari to open drop-down menu and choose Preferences
2. Go to the Privacy section of Safari’s preferences.
3. Click Remove All Website Data button.
4. In opened window click Remove Now button to remove data stored by websites in Safari.
5. Go to the Advanced section of Safari’s preferences.
6. Click the Show Develop menu in menu bar option.
7. In the menu click Develop and select Empty Caches from this menu.
8. Again, go to Safari menu and choose Clear History….
9. Choose to clear all history and click Clear History button.

Reset Safari on iOS:

1. Go to Settings, find Safari and tap on it
2. Tap on Clear History and Website Data and confirm your action.

Reset Google Chrome on Mac or Windows:

1. Start Google Chrome browser
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) chrome://settings.
3. Scroll down and find Show advanced settings link.
4. Click on it and scroll down to the bottom again.
5. Click Reset browser settings button and click Reset to confirm.

Reset Google Chrome on Android:

1. On Android device go to Settings > Apps, find Chrome app and tap on it
2. Tap on Storage and tap on Manage storage button on the left.
3. Tap Clear all data and confirm your action by tapping on OK button in the next dialog box.

Reset Mozilla Firefox:

1. Start Mozilla Firefox browser.
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) about:support.
3. Click Reset Firefox… button.
4. Click Reset Firefox to confirm.

Internet Explorer (9, 10, 11):

1. Start Internet Explorer.
2. Click on gear/asterisk icon in the top-right corner.
3. In opened menu choose Internet options.
4. Click Advanced tab.
5. Click Reset button.
6. Choose Delete personal settings and click Reset.

How to block Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device ads and pop-ups

AdGuard main window

AdGuard general settings

AdGuard browser assistant

Abnormal Network Traffic On This Devices, in most cases, are caused by a program installed on your PC or add-on installed in browsers. However, sometimes it can appear on a clean computer when visiting a malicious website, using an advertising script. Also, apps that generate Abnormal Network Traffic On This Devices, ads and banners are themselves installed from pop-ups. To protect your PC and browsers from phishing websites, pop-up ads, banners, malicious scripts it is recommended to use AdGuard. Download free trial here:

Final tips

Be careful surfing the internet and downloading software, as programs, that cause Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device, may become a real headache as they are hard to remove and break your privacy. To keep safe from such threats we recommend you always use antivirus and one of the anti-malware programs available on the market. One of the best anti-spyware and anti-malware programs is SpyHunter 5. It can protect your PC from threats, causing Abnormal Network Traffic On This Device.