[The Exiled]

CCleaner adds Data Collection feature with no way to Opt-Out

Last year, CCleaner made headlines when it suffered a massive supply-chain malware attack of all times, wherein hackers compromised its servers for over a month and replaced the original version of the software with the malicious one, infecting over 2.3 million users worldwide. This time the system cleaning software is in headlines due to "monitoring and data collection" features Avast added in past few months to your favorite system optimizer application. What's concerning is that even after turning off the Active Monitoring feature from CCleaner's menus, it turns back ON automatically whenever users reboot their computer or close the software. To make matters worse, this new version of CCleaner would not terminate when you closed the Window, but would instead be minimized to the Windows tray and the icon provided no way to close the program. The only way to close CCleaner was to forcefully terminate it via Task Manager.

Here's the timeline:

• CCleaner 5.43 released in May—removes the option to opt out of data-sharing feature for users of the free software version
• CCleaner 5.44 released in June—adds pop-up advertisements
• CCleaner 5.45 released in July—forces Active Monitoring and heartbeat features

Izvor: The Hacker News, BleepingComputer i gHacks