The company is still investigating this second breach but said that hackers weren't successful at pushing out a malicious CCleaner release today. This was their entry point inside Avast's network. Just like the last time, the hackers were looking to compromise CCleaner again.Īvast said hackers compromised an employee's VPN credentials to access a temporary VPN profile that was left active and without 2FA protection. This time, the hackers breached Avast's own network, as the company migrated CCleaner to its infrastructure following the 2017 hack. The 2019 hackīut today, Avast disclosed a second hack.
Avast is ccleaner safe now update#These computers would receive a second more potent malware strain that worked as a backdoor into the compromised networks.Īvast said that 2.27 million users received the tainted CCleaner update back in 2017 1,646,536 computers were infected with the first-stage Floxif trojan but only 40 computers received the more powerful backdoor.Īvast handled the 2017 breach with grace, never using the excuse that "Piriform was hacked, not us," and kept users updated on their investigation at every step - laying the ground for how many companies should handle security breaches. Hackers were looking for computers installed on the networks of several major tech companies, such as Cisco, Microsoft, Google, NEC, and others. This malware, known under the name of Floxif, worked as a basic scanner, collecting info on infected hosts, and sending the info back to the Chinese hackers. Back in April 2017, even before the Avast acquisition, a group of Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached Piriform's network via a TeamViewer account, searched for CCleaner distribution servers, and then released a CCleaner update tainted with malware. The 2017 hackīut it's exactly this success that brought hackers knocking on Piriform's door. This success came despite the fact that Microsoft and security experts have strongly recommended against using any registry cleaner apps, as most do more harm than good. ![]() The app evolved across the years, and now supports a trove of other features, such as removing temporary or old files left behind by other apps, performing automatic updates for other apps, and even blocking ad trackers, among many other things.Īvast claims the app has been downloaded more than 2.5 billion times and has 435 million users across 68 countries. Avast is ccleaner safe now windows#The app started as a "registry cleaner," a type of app that removes old Windows Registry entries after users have uninstalled old apps, in an effort to cut down the Registry's size and improve Windows OS speed. For most of its lifetime, the app has been managed by Piriform, a company that Avast acquired in July 2017. ![]() "We intend for CCleaner to continue to thrive and to be used by current and new customers." CCleaner's history and criticismĬCleaner is a Windows app that was launched in 2004. "The CCleaner product is a thriving, best in class product and performs an important function for users," Avast told ZDNet today. However, despite being nothing but a source of problems, Avast says it has no plans to discontinue the CCleaner app for the foreseeable future. Then, today, Avast discovered that hackers targeted CCleaner once again, this time compromising its main internal network in the process, and yet again, seeking to tamper with CCleaner releases. ![]() Avast is ccleaner safe now how to#This ebook, based on the latest ZDNet/TechRepublic special feature, offers a detailed look at how to build risk management policies to protect your critical digital assets.įirst, Chinese hackers breached Piriform's servers even before the Avast acquisition, inserting malware into official releases and leaving the Czech antivirus maker to deal with the PR fallout all throughout 20. Special report: A winning strategy for cybersecurity (free PDF)
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