Avast Cybersecurity and the Czech counterintelligence service BIS has reportedly identified a network attack on the company which is believed to have originated from China.
The cybersecurity comp any stated it had uncovered suspicious activity on its network back in September and approached the BIS and Czech police to conduct an investigation, according to a report from Reuters.
In a statement from the BIS it said its data analysis was indicating the attack came from China with the goal of seizing control of the optimization tool CCleaner and through this users’ computers. Despite this, there is no signs of who started the attack.
Avast believes the attacker used compromised credentials via a temporary virtual private network (VPN) profile. There had been a number of attempts to gain access the network from May through to October.
The cybersecurity company left the VPN profile active so it could attempt to track the culprit.
Its CCleaner service is believed to be the target for the attack. The service helps users to remove temporary, junk, unused and privacy related files, such as caches and cookies, for computer devices.
After the attack, Avast has confirmed no malicious alterations have been made to previous versions of the software and any new updates have been stopped. The company has released unviolated update for the product.
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