![]() The payload for this malware attack has several tasks once installed. “It was a very sophisticated hack, and I think the fact that it existed for 22 days without detection by anyone just shows how sophisticated it was.” “We’ve never detected that second stage being activated, so we do not believe it ever was,” Steckler added. To make matters worse, the nature of the attack “indicates that attackers were able to control a critical piece of infrastructure used by the vendor.” In other words, the hackers likely had broad access to CCleaner’s systems.įortunately, the code was detected before it ever had the chance to hijack vulnerable computers, according to Steckler. “This is sort of a holy grail for malware authors because they can efficiently distribute their malware, hide it in a trusted channel, and reach a potentially large number of users,” he said. Marco Cova, senior security researcher at Lastline, told Digital Trends that this “is an example of a software supply chain attack, where an otherwise trusted software vendor gets compromised and the update mechanism of the programs they distribute is leveraged to distribute malware.”Īccording to Cova, an attack like this is among the most damaging. ![]() ![]() Whether it’s hijacking legitimate distribution accounts, or in this case the download servers themselves, it leaves the victims vulnerable to infection even if they observe proper personal security practices. So that deactivated, or rendered meaningless any of this code - then we could safely go out and make an announcement,” Steckler said.Īlthough malware of all types is most commonly spread through phishing attacks like infected attachments and phony links, a tactic that is seeing a lot of success is the infection of trusted platforms. “We started working with law enforcement on late Tuesday afternoon, and we got the server shut down on Friday of last week. “The malicious code was a two-stage code, that is it has a rather innocuous component that transmitted some very basic non-personal data, but there was a second stage which allowed the server to transmit any executable to CCleaner for execution, and that’s the dangerous part,” Steckler said.Īfter finding it and getting the server shut down, Avast could safely announce what had happened without endangering vulnerable customers. Once the code was detected, Avast had to keep it under wraps so the culprit was unaware the company was on to the malware infection. Microsoft warns of latest malware attack, explains how to avoid secret backdoor This malware infects your motherboard and is almost impossible to remove Hackers are infiltrating news websites to spread malware
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