How to Remove Amazonaws (Adware/PUP)

What is Amazonaws? And how does it function?

Amazonaws, also known as Amazon Web Service (AWS), is a comprehensive cloud computing platform developed and maintained by Amazon. Some users describe the Amazon Web Service as a bundled remote computing service that provides cloud computing infrastructure over the web that includes database storage, computer power, content delivery and other features. Businesses can acquire database storage, applications, computing power, and other IT resources for pay-as-you-go pricing scheme.
Amazonaws has been developed in 2006 and many users find it quite useful as it supports application programming interfaces or API. However, recently, many users have reported that they keep seeing “S3.amazonaws.com” pop-ups which redirect them to suspicious websites like ask.com, search.ask, and so on. According to security experts, most of the ads displayed by this service are ads that offer users in winning iPhone and other prizes or ask them to participate in some online survey as well as download some shady application. This kind of behavior is common for ad-supported programs or adware. What’s more is that security experts who analyzed the AWS S3 vulnerability discovered that it could be used in disseminating ransomware threats similar to MongoDB, ElasticSearch, Hadoop, CouchDB, Cassandra and MySQL servers that were misused before in 2017 for ransomware distribution. It was also found that a lot of companies left data on the publicly readable writeable Amazonaws S3 servers. So anyone who tries to access Amazon S3 account can access, write, or delete data on the publicly-writeable AWS S3 accounts. So before anything happens to any of your sensitive data, you must remove Amazonaws from your computer.
How is Amazonaws distributed over the web?
Adware like Amazonaws is distributed via software bundles offered on free sharing sites. Meaning to say, this program can get installed on your computer without your knowledge when you install software bundles using only the standard or quick setup. To avoid this, you must select the Custom or Advanced setup so you can get rid of any extra components added in the software package.
Refer to the instructions prepared below to remove Amazonaws from your computer.
Step 1: Start by opening the Task Manager by simply pressing the Ctrl + Shift + Esc keys.
Step 2: Next, go to Processes and look for the processes named “Amazonaws” and then right click on each one of them and select End Process or End Task to kill their processes.

Step 3: Then open the Control Panel. To do so, tap the Windows key + R, then type in appwiz.cpl and then click OK or press Enter.

Step 4: Look for Amazon Web Service or Amazonaws and any suspicious program and then Uninstall them.

Step 5: Close all the browsers affected by Amazonaws. If you’re having a hard time closing them, you can close them using the Task Manager just tap on Ctrl + Shift + Esc.
Step 6: After you open the Task Manager, go to the Processes tab and look for the infected browser’s process and end it.
Step 7: Edit your Hosts File

Tap the Win + R keys to open then type in %WinDir% and then click OK.
Go to System32/drivers/etc.
Open the host’s file using Notepad.
Delete all the entries containing Amazonaws.
After that, save the changes you’ve made and close the file.

Step 8: Reset all your browsers to default to their default state.
Google Chrome

Launch Google Chrome, press Alt + F, move to More tools, and click Extensions.
Look for Amazonaws or any other unwanted add-ons, click the Recycle Bin button, and choose Remove.
Restart Google Chrome, then tap Alt + F, and select Settings.
Navigate to the On Startup section at the bottom.
Select “Open a specific page or set of pages”.
Click the More actions button next to the hijacker and click Remove.

Mozilla Firefox

Open the browser and tap Ctrl + Shift + A to access the Add-ons Manager.
In the Extensions menu Remove the unwanted extension.
Restart the browser and tap keys Alt + T.
Select Options and then move to the General menu.
Overwrite the URL in the Home Page section and then restart the browser.

Internet Explorer

Launch Internet Explorer.
Tap Alt + T and select Internet options.
Click the General tab and then overwrite the URL under the homepage section.
Click OK to save the changes.

Step 9: Hold down Windows + E keys simultaneously to open File Explorer.
Step 10: Navigate to the following directories and look for suspicious files associated to Amazonaws and delete it/them.

%USERPROFILE%\Downloads
%USERPROFILE%\Desktop
%TEMP%

Step 11: Close the File Explorer.
Step 12: Empty the Recycle Bin.
Follow the advanced instructions below to ensure the removal of Amazonaws using [product-name] as well as all the file residues it left behind.
Perform a full system scan using [product-code]. To do so, follow these steps:

Turn on your computer. If it’s already on, you have to reboot
After that, the BIOS screen will be displayed, but if Windows pops up instead, reboot your computer and try again. Once you’re on the BIOS screen, repeat pressing F8, by doing so the Advanced Option shows up.

To navigate the Advanced Option use the arrow keys and select Safe Mode with Networking then hit
Windows will now load the SafeMode with Networking.
Press and hold both R key and Windows key.

If done correctly, the Windows Run Box will show up.
Type in the URL address, [product-url] in the Run dialog box and then tap Enter or click OK.
After that, it will download the program. Wait for the download to finish and then open the launcher to install the program.
Once the installation process is completed, run [product-code] to perform a full system scan.