Czech cyber security company Avast has had to backtrack again on information that it has released so far about the compromise of CCleaner, a Windows utility, that was loaded with malware after a hack.
In the latest post from its threat intelligence team, Avast said its conclusion, that only four days of data were on the hacked server due to it running out of space, was incorrect.
"However, further investigation revealed that the attackers backed up the data from the crashed CnC server to another server before rebuilding the database," the team wrote in the latest post which was dated 25 September.
The team also said that its claim that the attackers may have been from China was wrong; the company said it was now of the opinion that the attack may have originated in Russia or the eastern part of the Middle East/Central Asia and India.
{loadposition sam08}News of the compromise of CCleaner, software that Avast acquired when it bought its creator Piriform, broke on 17 September through a detailed blog post by Cisco's Talos Intelligence Group.
Following that, there have been three posts by Avast, with the company having to correct itself more than once; it claimed that the malware's second-stage payload was not delivered to anyone but had to admit this was wrong once Talos issued a second post with evidence that the payload had reached a number of targets (graphic on right).
Talos listed Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, HTC, Samsung, VMware,Akamai, Sony, Singtel, D-Link, O2, Vodafone, German gaming and gambling company Gauselmann, Linksys, Gmail, MSI, Dynamic Network Services and Epson.
In its latest post, Avast said it had now found that:
- The total number of connections to the CnC server was 5,686,677.
- The total number of unique PCs (unique MAC addresses) that communicated with the CnC server was 1,646,536.
- The total number of unique PCs that received the second-stage payload was 40.
Another claim by Avast in this post was that "despite there being a large number of tech/telco companies in China, Russia and India, there are no companies from these countries on the list of companies targeted by this attack".
This post by Avast may not be the last, with the team writing, "Our security team has reached out to all companies proven to be part of the second stage, and we’re committed to working with them to resolve the issue fully.
"Obviously, the fact that the second-stage payload has been delivered to a computer connected to a company network doesn’t mean that the company network has been compromised.
"However, proper investigation is in order and necessary to fully understand the impact and take remediation actions. From our side, we continue working on getting access and analysing the additional stages of the payload (post stage 2). We will post an update as soon as we learn more."