Article: CCleaner Hack Affects Millions: What You Should Know
By: Don Reisinger
Date Published: Sept 18, 2017
So what exactly is going on with CCleaner and this hack that happened earlier this week? Well, one of Fortune's journalists, Don Reisinger, set out to let us know what is really going on. In his article, he talks about how the system "had been compromised with a ‘backdoor’," meaning that the hackers got around the system’s normal security processes and made it into the internal workings. From what has been gathered so far, the hackers had evidently "illegally modified" CCleaners software, which then permitted the hackers to access infected individuals’ machines and cause damage to the system and gather personal data.
At the current time, it is unclear how many individuals were infected by the virus. However, out of the approximately 2 billion copies of the virus protector that have been downloaded, Reisinger believes that "it's likely that millions of users were infected." Since the hack, the company has come forward to note that they were working with law enforcement to find the one behind the attack, as well as the fact that they closed the backdoor that was being used, updating the software in the process.
It is unclear if we are out of the woods yet with this hack. While the company is saying everything is cleaned up and that "no users were affected by the problem," Don states that other security researchers believe that is not the case and that the company is only trying to "downplay the hack." It has been advised that if anyone has CCleaner on any device, they need to update their software to version 5.34 instead of 5.33. Other than that, Reisinger had no other advice except to stay up to date in case any other information comes up on how to keep systems safe.
I feel that Don Reisinger did a really good job informing the public on what they need to know without going into too many details about just how the hackers did it. The public needs to understand that things like this happen, but they also need to take imitate action if the company tells the public what needs to be done to keep their system safe. I personally think that CCleaner has fully taken responsibility of the situation and is doing their best to keep the public's information safe. I hope that the security researchers that are looking in from the outside are incorrect in their ideas that those with CCleaner are still at risk. As we continue seeing hackers break into systems, if we study how they get in, one day, hopefully we can outsmart them and keep them out of our systems. Sadly, even with public policies in place to try to deter people from committing these crimes, they won’t scare everyone away from participating in these crimes. Hopefully, as you are reading this, there are professionals out there working on security codes to keep harmful viruses from reaching any systems.
As for the general public, the most that we can do is to download other virus protection software or staying up to date through the news to make sure that they are following any and all information handed out by the company to protect their information.
Article: http://fortune.com/2017/09/18/ccleaner-hack-what-you-should-know/
Image: https://betanews.com/2017/09/18/ccleaner-hacked-backdoor/
By: Don Reisinger
Date Published: Sept 18, 2017
So what exactly is going on with CCleaner and this hack that happened earlier this week? Well, one of Fortune's journalists, Don Reisinger, set out to let us know what is really going on. In his article, he talks about how the system "had been compromised with a ‘backdoor’," meaning that the hackers got around the system’s normal security processes and made it into the internal workings. From what has been gathered so far, the hackers had evidently "illegally modified" CCleaners software, which then permitted the hackers to access infected individuals’ machines and cause damage to the system and gather personal data.
It is unclear if we are out of the woods yet with this hack. While the company is saying everything is cleaned up and that "no users were affected by the problem," Don states that other security researchers believe that is not the case and that the company is only trying to "downplay the hack." It has been advised that if anyone has CCleaner on any device, they need to update their software to version 5.34 instead of 5.33. Other than that, Reisinger had no other advice except to stay up to date in case any other information comes up on how to keep systems safe.
I feel that Don Reisinger did a really good job informing the public on what they need to know without going into too many details about just how the hackers did it. The public needs to understand that things like this happen, but they also need to take imitate action if the company tells the public what needs to be done to keep their system safe. I personally think that CCleaner has fully taken responsibility of the situation and is doing their best to keep the public's information safe. I hope that the security researchers that are looking in from the outside are incorrect in their ideas that those with CCleaner are still at risk. As we continue seeing hackers break into systems, if we study how they get in, one day, hopefully we can outsmart them and keep them out of our systems. Sadly, even with public policies in place to try to deter people from committing these crimes, they won’t scare everyone away from participating in these crimes. Hopefully, as you are reading this, there are professionals out there working on security codes to keep harmful viruses from reaching any systems.
As for the general public, the most that we can do is to download other virus protection software or staying up to date through the news to make sure that they are following any and all information handed out by the company to protect their information.
Article: http://fortune.com/2017/09/18/ccleaner-hack-what-you-should-know/
Image: https://betanews.com/2017/09/18/ccleaner-hacked-backdoor/
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