Posted by Martijn Grooten on Oct 2, 2017
The recently discovered malicious CCleaner version has become one of the biggest security stories of 2017. It is the story of a mysterious attacker who managed to put a backdoor into millions of PCs around the world, yet who then used this to install a second-stage payload on just a few dozen machines at carefully selected companies, showing both great determination and restraint.
But it is also a story of great security research: by Morphisec and Cisco, and also by Avast, the company that had recently acquired CCleaner developer Piriform and which thus had every incentive to play down the issue. Instead, Avast published several blog posts in which its researchers shared the results of their investigation with the wider security community.
Given the 'hotness' of the topic and its relevance for security vendors, for whom a malicious update is a horror scenario, we are thrilled that Avast researchers Jakub Křoustek and Jiří Bracek have offered to share their findings at VB2017.
They will do so on Thursday, from 9am to 10am in the Small Talk room, when there should be ample of time for questions and discussion.
Later the same day, Jakub will share the stage with Előd Kironský (ESET) to discuss the Spora ransomware.
Registration for VB2017 remains open, but places are filling up fast – book now to avoid disappointment!
