Oh joy - more hacking - just who can be trusted now

[aernethril]

theverge ccleaner-hack-malware-security

I'm not clear if this is just CC cleaner software that was offered via the Avast website or if it was any CCleaner downloaded from anywhere.

I changed from AVG to Avast because AVG was causing my pc to really slow, kept throwing up wretched pop-up notices to try and scare users into upgrading and generally had become a total pain to use manually as they kept changing the interface and settings.

It really feels like I'm running out of options to use for added security these days.

[otherego]

El Reg had an article on this (sorry, I didn't bookmark it).

It didn't look TOO dangerous, to be honest. What caught my eye was the fact that the malware only worked on an admistrator account - and I'd imagine most folk who post here only those when absolutely unavoidable.

Still worrying, and does nothing to assuage my suspicions about proprietary software *hem-hem*

[aernethril]

Just bumping this as an update and alert.

When I learnt about this back in September, I did what I thought was a thorough removal of CCleaner and then ran both Avast and Malwarebytes scans and all was well.

I've run both scans in October as a matter of course, both regularly updated.

So - not at all happy to find today's scan by Malwarebytes picked up a trojan connected with CC - Avast totally missed it.

Once I'd completed the quarantine process, I went in search of where this thing had been sitting only to find that the removal of CCleaner had not touched the downloads.

I don't know if this made a difference but a) I was just a tad annoyed that I'd missed them and b) that trojan had sneeked in under the radar after I thought all was safe and since I removed CCleaner from my programs.

So - if anyone had CC updated during that August/September timeperiod, it may be worth not just removing it completely, plus checking all folders  and running extra scans regularly.

Also - when that trojan was found by Malwarebytes, I tried doing a search (Find) for ccsetup and the search came up blank. I had to go back to MWB to look at the directory path to find where it had been located.

[otherego]

Hopefully, it was just the installation file that lurked behind - presumably it would only be harmful if you clicked on it and told it install CCleaner again.

Hopefully.

At risk of sounding like a stuck record (remember those?), have you considered using an alternative operating system? None is invulnerable to attack and I'd imagine they're all capable of being thoroughly annoying. However, Windows does attract an awful lot of malware. Presumably this is the result of Microsoft's dominance, but I can't help wondering whether the fact that so many attacks succeed might just have something to do with vulnerabilities in Windows.

W10 is doubtless very secure, but I can't bring myself to trust it - all that business with the telemetry (and everything else the default privacy settings allow to be sent to Microsoft), and the updates which remain out of the user's control.

I'm very happy with Linux (specifically, Linux Mint) but for those who prefer the "reassuringly expensive" approach, there's always Apple. Not for me (seems too keen on vendor lock-in), but it just seems more secure than Windows and at least slightly less of a privacy threat.

If you're adventurous, there are options like FreeBSD - which looks a bit beyond me, but is very highly regarded.