The popular Windows cleanup utility CCleaner recently got hacked and for a time was actually spreading a virus to anyone who downloaded it from its official site. Hackers managed to slip in a virus into version 5.3 of CCleaner. This version was the one being offered by parent company Piriform from August 15 through September 12th. Given that millions of people use CCleaner, its possible that this hack affected thousands, if not millions of users.
We have seen this kind of thing happening a lot more in recent years. Hackers manage to slip their code into legitimate applications before they are released or they gain access to a popular application’s download servers and swap out the normal download for one that is actually a virus that sorta looks like the application a user was expecting to install. These kinds of hacks are especially dangerous since more and more applications these days are able to auto update themselves to the latest version in order to provide new features and, ironically, security fixes. We even saw this with a version of the Apple Mac version of the popular video encoding utility Handbrake a few months back.
If you installed CCLeaner within the past few weeks, your best bet is to either run an up-to-date virus scanner on your system or, if you can, restore from a backup that you made before you installed version 5.3 of CCleaner. If you are still having problems or are not sure you successfully removed the virus you can always bring your desktop or laptop by our offices at 1331 South Beckham in Tyler just south of the hospitals. We can help you with this specific virus or give your computer a general checkup to help you find out why it is acting strangely.
You can also contact us by email at info@computerrepairintyler.com or call us at 903-858-4383.