I am sure somebody will say this is the wrong forum. But avast! owns CCleaner and I did a search on all the forums and have not seen this topic show up.
This morning, March 29, 2018 in the USA at least three computers on my network suddenly had CCleaner starting on bootup. All of those computers also have avast! endpoint protection, controlled through the SOA.
A computer vendor that we use was in the habit of including CCleaner on new computers many years ago. So a lot of our machines have it installed. But it has NEVER been set to run on boot, and NEVER updated to a later version. I repeat, it was installed MANY YEARS AGO, and NEVER used. This morning it is suddenly updated to version 5.41.129.6446, with a copyright date of 2018.
I am guessing that avast! is using its Endpoint Protection software to retroactively clean up the mess that was created when criminals hijacked CCleaner last summer.
HOWEVER: It is VERY UNCOOL to suddenly and remotely cause a program to run on startup without the user's permission. I am quite sure that avast! could have updated the software by only inserting the update bits, without changing the program's start-up status to "on boot". They should have done that.
Yes, I can fix this on Win XP and Win 7 by, among other methods, unchecking the suddenly-added checkbox for CCleaner in MSConfig's start-up tab.
I am less sure whether any harm has been done, since I am not familiar with CCleaner's "phone home" activities and I don't know whether it stole any information from my computer and sent it back to the company.
Yes, I can uninstall CCleaner from our machines since we never use it, and that is now going to be a priority for me, but it adds work for my already overworked staff.
If my guess is correct, avast! should publicly admit to it, and promise never to do such a thing again.
