Malware found in official Ccleaner installers

LASER_oneXM

Level 37
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Feb 4, 2016
2,520
I found a short article/how-to about the inection and how to remove it:

CCleaner Malware Incident - What You Need to Know and How to Remove.
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How do I remove it?
The malware was embedded in the CCleaner executable itself. Updating CCleaner to v5.34 removes the old executable and the malware. CCleaner does not have an auto-update system, so users must download and install CCleaner 5.34 manually.

Avast said it already pushed an update to CCleaner Cloud users, and they should be fine. The clean version is CCleaner Cloud 1.07.3214.

Anything else?
The malware executed only if the user was using an admin account. If you use a low-privileged account and installed CCleaner 5.33, you more not affected. Nonetheless, it is recommended that you update to version 5.34.

Why didn't antivirus software catch the infection?
The CCleaner binary that included the malware was signed using a valid digital certificate.
 

RoboMan

Level 34
Verified
Top Poster
Content Creator
Well-known
Jun 24, 2016
2,399
So i just booted my Windows partition (x64 Win10) and Kaspersky tells me:

WkKNlRb.png


I block the access and delete the file, and after a few seconds Kaspersky tells me:

R5bESOY.png
 

ispx

Level 13
Verified
Well-known
Jun 21, 2017
616
What does the malware do?
The malware — named Floxif — collects data from infected computers, such as computer name, a list of installed software, a list of running processes, MAC addresses for the first three network interfaces, and unique IDs to identify each computer in part.

source : CCleaner Malware Incident - What You Need to Know and How to Remove

all that floxif is doing, ccleaner has been doing all that since years :

https://malwr.com/analysis/Y2M0YTFhNGQwYWYzNDlmZTllN2I0ZGUyOGEyMzFiMjE/
 

Sunshine-boy

Level 28
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Apr 1, 2017
1,758

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shmu26

Level 85
Verified
Honorary Member
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Content Creator
Well-known
Jul 3, 2015
8,150
Whats the solution for dig signed malware? We all see even Kasper sky failed! I think that cisco detected it first?
Cisco's Talos Intelligence Group Blog: CCleanup: A Vast Number of Machines at Risk
If a company that you know and trust pushes a malicious update, and it is zero-day, there is not very much you can do to protect against it, other than to keep alert for strange activity, like cmd.exe and things like that. But there is no guarantee you will see a sign of malware activity.
 
5

509322

Thread author
If a company that you know and trust pushes a malicious update, and it is zero-day, there is not very much you can do to protect against it, other than to keep alert for strange activity, like cmd.exe and things like that. But there is no guarantee you will see a sign of malware activity.

When the malware is embedded within the trusted software itself it is unlikely to be detected by signature. Depending upon what the malware does, HIPS\anti-executable\BB\SRP can detect\alert\block actions dependent upon settings and rules.
 
5

509322

Thread author
It makes complete sense to target CCleaner since it is an immensely popular soft world-wide. Malware\attacks are a numbers game so, generally, the malc0der wants a distribution method that results in the greatest number of compromised machines. The greater the number of infected machines, the greater the probability of nasty success.
 
5

509322

Thread author
HI Lockdown APPGUARD could block this malware?I mean if you have CCleaner on your machine and at the same time running appguard in the paranoid mode.

It depends upon what the embedded malware does.

If the user installed it to Program Files and the embedded malicious code does not trigger anything suspicious or disallowed, then the likelihood is the same as the current situation where no security softs detected it.

Forget it... there is nothing you can add to your system to protect against this specific situation.

I guess Eset hips in paranoid mode can block this.

No guarantee. It depends upon what the embedded malicious code does. If it does nothing that triggers the HIPS, then it will run.
 

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