#CYBER RISK SEPTEMBER 18, 2017 / 4:39 AM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO

Hackers compromised free CCleaner software, Avast's Piriform says

Joseph Menn
3 MIN READ

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hackers broke into British company Piriform’s free software for optimizing computer performance last month potentially allowing them to control the devices of more than two million users, the company and independent researchers said on Monday.

The malicious program was slipped into legitimate software called CCleaner, which is downloaded for personal computers and Android phones as often as five million times a week. It cleans up junk programs and advertising cookies to speed up devices.

CCleaner is the main product made by London’s Piriform, which was bought in July by Prague-based Avast, one of the world’s largest computer security vendors. At the time of the acquisition, the company said 130 million people used CCleaner.

A version of CCleaner downloaded in August included remote administration tools that tried to connect to several unregistered web pages, presumably to download additional unauthorized programs, security researchers at Cisco’s (CSCO.O) Talos unit said.

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... It advised users of CCleaner v5.33.6162 and CCleaner Cloud v1.07.3191 to download new versions. ...


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