We understand that given the late disclosure of the massive Equifax data breach 10 days ago, consumers and media are very sensitive, as they should be. As such, as soon as we became aware of this issue, we engaged and solved it. Within approximately 72 hours of discovery, the issue was resolved by Avast with no known harm to our Piriform customers. The purpose of this article is to clarify what actually happened, correct some misleading information that is currently circulating, recap what actions Avast took, and outline next steps.
Avast acquired Piriform, the maker of CCleaner, on July 18, because Piriform has a great product, and wonderful supporters and users. And we stand by that today. The compromise may have started on July 3 rd. The server was provisioned earlier in and the SSL certificate for the respective https communication had a timestamp of July 3, We strongly suspect that Piriform was being targeted while they were operating as a standalone company, prior to the Avast acquisition.
The compromised version of CCleaner was released on August 15 and went undetected by any security company for four weeks, underscoring the sophistication of the attack. We continue to be actively cooperating with law enforcement units, working together to identify the source of the attack. Shortly after the original announcement, a series of press stories were released but many of the details about what happened and the impact on users were surmised.
We would like to take this opportunity to correct as much as we can in this article. Lastly, why would Avast try to trash one of their own products, then make a post about it? If they were really going to go to that lengths, I am sure they would have done it way more stealthy. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use. Share More sharing options Followers 3. Recommended Posts.
Tom CCleaner Posted September 18, Posted September 18, Dear CCleaner customers, users and supporters,. We would like to apologise for a security incident that we have recently found in CCleaner version 5. We recently determined that these versions of our software had been compromised. We resolved this quickly and believe no harm was done to any of our home users, but we do have evidence that this has targeted large technology and telecommunication companies in Japan, Taiwan, UK, Germany and the US.
This compromise only affected customers with the bit version of the v5. No other Piriform or CCleaner products were affected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options So the 64 bit version was not affected? AeitZean Posted September 18, We encourage all users of the bit version of CCleaner v5.
Hav0c Posted September 18, Every line of code written by man can be undone by man. ProfoundlyOblivious Posted September 18, I congratulate you on getting in front of the news, reviewing your software, and informing your customers. That is praiseworthy and I will not withhold due praise Piriform does not have checksums displayed on the website.
So customers, like me, can't review their download and learn if they may have been infected. I did not download CCleaner but I recognized the name immediately because it was "included" with one of your products last week.
I'll call it a concentration test. I'm certain you know what I mean, if the customer is installing one piece of software and loses concentration then they may click a button without unchecking a box - and end up with CCleaner on their system. Anyhow, my point is this, we both know at least one dangerous file was hosted, as your customer, I cannot confirm if the file I got last week is clean.
A customer doesn't have inside knowledge, they don't know if it was a funny prank by an employee or a serious breach. What they know is one product took a bullet and that makes it conceivable that others may have been lined with it. The single best thing they can do right now is confirm the integrity of their file.
At best, the numbers match and the customer is at ease - at worst, the numbers don't match and a second attack vector was discovered This is information that we both need to know! As it is right now, I have 2 options, I either finish scrubbing my computer and forget about ever trusting Piriform again, or I turn my computer off and wait for the numbers to be posted so I can move forward with accurate information. Neither choice is pleasant but I really do prefer the second option. CCleaner Free and Professional are for home use only.
Get CCleaner for your Business. CCleaner Documentation. Are you a Mac User? Click here. Runs on Microsoft Windows 10, 8. Does that sound reasonable? I have uninstalled it with Revo Uninstaller and am going to revert to an earlier version till things settle down. There has been quite a bit of press coverage today about our announcement that the Piriform CCleaner product was illegally modified during the build process to include a backdoor component.
Our first priority is our commitment to the safety and security of our millions of users, and supporting our new partner Piriform as they manage this situation. We understand that given the late disclosure of the massive Equifax data breach 10 days ago, consumers and media are very sensitive, as they should be. As such, as soon as we became aware of this issue, we engaged and solved it. Within approximately 72 hours of discovery, the issue was resolved by Avast with no known harm to our Piriform customers.
The purpose of this article is to clarify what actually happened, correct some misleading information that is currently circulating, recap what actions Avast took, and outline next steps. Avast acquired Piriform, the maker of CCleaner, on July 18, because Piriform has a great product, and wonderful supporters and users.
And we stand by that today. The compromise may have started on July 3rd. The server was provisioned earlier in and the SSL certificate for the respective https communication had a timestamp of July 3, We strongly suspect that Piriform was being targeted while they were operating as a standalone company, prior to the Avast acquisition.
The compromised version of CCleaner was released on August 15 and went undetected by any security company for four weeks, underscoring the sophistication of the attack. We continue to be actively cooperating with law enforcement units, working together to identify the source of the attack. Shortly after the original announcement, a series of press stories were released but many of the details about what happened and the impact on users were surmised.
We would like to take this opportunity to correct as much as we can in this article. Many of the articles implied that 2 billion users were affected with an additional 5 million every week. This comes from the fact that since CCleaner started, it has been downloaded 2 billion times with 5 million a week being currently downloaded, as presented on their website.
However, this is several orders of magnitude different from the actual affected users. As only two smaller distribution products the 32 bit and cloud versions, Windows only were compromised, the actual number of users affected by this incident was 2.
And due to the proactive approach to update as many users as possible, we are now down to , users still using the affected version 5. These users should upgrade even though they are not at risk as the malware has been disabled on the server side. Avast first learned about the possible malware on September 12, AM PT from a company called Morphisec which notified us about their initial findings.
We believe that Morphisec also notified Cisco. We thank Morphisec and we owe a special debt to their clever people who identified the threat and allowed us to go about the business of mitigating it.
Following the receipt of this notification, we launched an investigation immediately, and by the time the Cisco message was received September 14, AM PT , we had already thoroughly analyzed the threat, assessed its risk level and in parallel worked with law enforcement in the US to properly investigate the root cause of the issue. During that time, the Cisco Talos team, who has been working on this issue in parallel, registered the secondary DGA domains before we had the chance to.
With these two actions, the server was taken down and the threat was effectively eliminated as the attacker lost the ability to deliver the payload. Meanwhile, the Piriform and Avast teams were also busy providing a quick fix for CCleaner users.
First, we made sure the currently shipping version 5. Next, we released a fixed version 5. We do not believe this is necessary. Based on the analysis of this data, we believe that the second stage payload never activated, i.
Therefore, we consider restoring the affected machines to the pre-August 15 state unnecessary. By similar logic, security companies are not usually advising customers to reformat their machines after a remote code execution vulnerability is identified on their computer.
Customers are advised to update to the latest version of CCleaner, which will remove the backdoor code from their systems. As of now, CCleaner 5. We deeply understand the seriousness of the situation, as we do with all security threats. To reiterate, we accept responsibility for the breach and have implemented the following actions and precautions:. The server was taken down before any harm was done to customers We worked immediately with law enforcement to identify the source of the attack We took multiple steps to update our customers who had the affected software version We disclosed everything that happened in a blog when we were cleared to do so We migrated the Piriform build environment to the Avast infrastructure, and are in the process of moving the entire Piriform staff onto Avast internal IT system.
We plan to be issuing more updates on this as we go. We have made it our highest priority to properly investigate this unfortunate incident and to take all possible measures to ensure that it never happens again. Dear Vince… Hate to burst your bubble, but I run the 64 bit program on my machine. Guess what Webroot just pulled up and then deleted? So…I would recommend alerting your 64 bit customers as well…smdh…. It was found in TWO files…uninst. I have my 64 bit program setup for automatic updates.
No such files on my bit, portable, free version. No Piriform registry key at the reported location. I did upgrade from v. The bit installations of CCleaner were also affected. My Win7 x64 computers were compromised on June 21, The second stage payload had activated on all of them by the time that news of the infection was publicly released. The second stage payload evaded all detection. I had to restore all of my computers from offline backups prior to June I was running the 5. Guess what Webroot just found?
After deleting it, I started my usual investigation work and came across this article. The free version of C-Cleaner does not update automatically. Well before being acquired by Avast, C-Cleaner used to put up an update flag way too often and then you had to update manually, if you wanted to. The first was one of the last major, worldwide ransomware alerts, probably done by the hackers working for the Russian secret services : they infected an update of an accouting program, widely used in Ukraine.
Bleach Bit is not an alternative. The interface is rotten, whatever the open source fanboys may say. Just try to erase two or three files of your choosing, and see the ridiculous way it handles that. And yes, user interfaces do matter. If you fear potentially dangerous connections just block ccleaner. CCleaner remains IMO a valid cleaner, perhaps one of the best available.
Did not see any HKLM. Thanks for the help. No actual damage was done as it seems, but this was a preliminary stage for a large-scale attack, which could have been catastrophic if it had not been detected, somewhat at random, by one security company. I agree of course that the infection vector justifies — requires!
Generally speaking our net, cyber behavior is relevant IMO of deep emotional concerns of many of us, as if in a binary easily switchable good-bad, love-hatred etc. We all know mistakes are the lot in the same way there is no perfectly well-balanced, problem-free psyche, and that the only real problem is in not resolving those we know than having them. Never seen that on CCleaner, but maybe is this a paid version feature? What I know is that several options are on by default unless otherwise specified when running the install.
It does things such as : if cleaning saves more than x GB, then prompt me to clean. I got a Windows Defender alert today that said this malware had been detected and quarantined , advising me to remove it immediately, so I did. I checked my version of CCleaner, and it is the version number that is affected 5. One question I have is this: I read that only the 32bit version is affected. I would have thought mine was not 32bit, since my computer is 64bit, and the name of the CCleaner program I have is CCleaner But since I received the Defender alert, does that mean my CCleaner is the 32bit version after all?
Despite its name of CCleaner64 and the fact that my computer is 64bit? And is there any way to know if the malware has really been removed from my system? I was still researching free antivirus programs trying to find the one the best one for me.
All Defender did was alert me it was detected and in quarantine, and I said remove it, and it said it did.
I see this article states ClamAV which I had never even heard of! Also, I see the only advice from the company is just to update to the newest version now. Is that related to the malware?
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