#CCLEANER MALWARE ISSUE INSTALL#
#CCLEANER MALWARE ISSUE SOFTWARE#
#CCLEANER MALWARE ISSUE CODE#
#CCLEANER MALWARE ISSUE PLUS#

It punishes good behavior.' -Craig Williams, Cisco Talos 'People trust companies, and when they're compromised like this it really breaks that trust.

#CCLEANER MALWARE ISSUE SOFTWARE#

'Given the opportunities for reach and data collection it gives to the attackers, most likely it will be reproduced again and again with some other widely used software component.' (Kaspersky itself is dealing with its own software trust problem: The Department of Homeland Security has banned its use in US government agencies, and retail giant Best Buy has pulled its software from shelves, due to suspicions that it too could be abused by Kaspersky's suspected associates in the Russian government.) “ShadowPad is an example of how dangerous and wide-scale a successful supply-chain attack can be,' Kaspersky analyst Igor Soumenkov wrote at the time.

One month later, researchers at Russian security firm Kaspersky discovered another supply chain attack they called 'Shadowpad': Hackers had smuggled a backdoor capable of downloading malware into hundreds of banks, energy, and drug companies via corrupted software distributed by the South Korea-based firm Netsarang, which sells enterprise and network management tools.

#CCLEANER MALWARE ISSUE CODE#

Three times in the last three months, hackers have exploited the digital supply chain to plant tainted code that hides in software companies' own systems of installation and updates, hijacking those trusted channels to stealthily spread their malicious code. It's also an increasingly common incident. That attack betrayed basic consumer trust in CCleaner-developer Avast, and software firms more broadly, by lacing a legitimate program with malware-one distributed by a security company, no less. On Monday, Cisco's Talos security research division revealed that hackers sabotaged the ultra-popular, free computer-cleanup tool CCleaner for at least the last month, inserting a backdoor into updates to the application that landed in millions of personal computers. But lately, devious hackers have been targeting their attacks further up the software supply chain, sneaking malware into downloads from even trusted vendors, long before you ever click to install.

#CCLEANER MALWARE ISSUE INSTALL#

Only install applications from a trusted source or from a trusted app store. So, it may now be the case that if you go to install CCleaner while running Microsoft Defender, you’re no longer warned against proceeding, assuming the security app is indeed updated as CCleaner asserts.The warnings consumers hear from information security pros tend to focus on trust: Don't click web links or attachments from an untrusted sender. We surmise the issue appears to be around bundling, and we believe we have addressed this so that our product is now no longer flagged.” Often, these matters are down to the way the options to opt out are presented.Īt any rate, according to a statement just released by CCleaner, the firm believes that the issue has been resolved.Ī CCleaner spokesperson told us: “We are in the process of engaging with Microsoft to understand why CCleaner was recently detected as PUA. The company observes that while the CCleaner installation process does provide a way to opt out of putting these extras on your PC, as you would expect, the judgment is that “some users can easily inadvertently install these bundled applications”. Microsoft further stresses that those bundled apps are perfectly fine and not in any way malicious, of course, but it’s the way that they are offered for installation which is problematic.

#CCLEANER MALWARE ISSUE PLUS#

Those bundled apps include Google Chrome browser, Google Toolbar, and Avast Free Antivirus plus AVG Antivirus Free (note that Piriform is now owned by Avast, which also owns AVG too).

Ccleaner malware issue