AfterDawn: News

Official CCleaner distributed malware with its installer

Super popular PC cleaning program CCleaner received a serious blow to its reputation as it was found that the software's orfficial installer distributed malware.

The malware-infected CCleaner had a version number v5.33. Luckily though, the malware only affected 32-bit Windows systems and required administrator rights for the user before installing itself to the PC.



CCleaner's author, Piriform, is owned by security company Avast, making the finding even more embarrassing. Piriform now instructs its users to uninstall the software and to download the newer, clean version of the software. Clean versions have version number v5.34 or higher.

Malware was found by Cisco's security company Telos.

You can download the latest v5.34 CCleaner from our servers:

Download CCleaner v5.34

EDIT 19th of Sep, 2017: The malware incident was caused by a hacker

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 18 Sep 2017 9:29

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• 9 comments

• jjstccean

  Ccleaner in my opinion is just bloatware hugging good system resources. I won't use it.

  18.9.2017 11:11 #1

• Bozobub

  There literally is zero excuse for this, much less from an AV vendor.

  18.9.2017 11:12 #2

• DoktorThomas

  CC has outlived its purpose. Many superior products are available for the same price.
  Having read the article, Piriform will have to supply me with a new PC in order to coax me to use their products the future. And, no I won't use their CC software on the new PC. ©2017
  

  18.9.2017 11:31 #3

• mcooksb

  My Norton did not like it and removed it from my system.

  18.9.2017 14:21 #4

• Bozobub

  Most "cleaner" utilities are also more of a danger than anything else. I've had to fix innumerable systems with issues from using CCleaner, as well as other similar drek.

  18.9.2017 14:41 #5

• abrogard

  my 64bit win10 system Avira found some 'cloud' thing in it or something and blocked the install.
  
  my current ver is 5.27.
  
  I have never had any trouble with ccleaner and thought it was good.
  
  Impressed by all its extra features: 'tools'.
  
  surprised by the comments here.
  
  would someone care to give links to better products?

  18.9.2017 17:14 #6

• Bozobub

  I don't recommend automatic registry "cleaners" at all. Seriously, I get tired of fixing what's done with 'em. Some of it is the fault of the programs themselves, some is the users and what the programs let users do with the registry.
  
  Monkeys will monkey, and monkeying with your registry can be fantastically dangerous, frankly, especially on the scale these programs operate at. Furthermore, they can break many elaborate DRM schemes (by deleting "dummy" registry entries, most often).
  
  Frankly, periodic reinstall of your OS — no matter which you use — is really the best "cleaner" out there. An image of a clean install, with everything you depend on ready to go,is an excellent alternative and time-saver.

  18.9.2017 17:43 #7

• ivymike

  Neener neener neener!!!!!
  

  18.9.2017 19:04 #8

• fyvm666

  8 years or so ago Avast put out an update that completely cratered my Windows system. That would be forgivable, but they never to my knowledge publicized the problem so it took a me week before I could find other users who experienced the same problem and pointed at Avast. Switched to Avira and haven't looked back.
  I also echo the sentiments above regarding automatic registry "cleaners".

  19.9.2017 04:37 #9