For the past few days Microsoft Defender has been reporting CCleaner as an unsafe app. Here’s what it means and why it happens
If in the last few days Microsoft Defender, the antivirus present by default on all PCs running Windows 10, reports you that the CCleaner app is potentially dangerous, you don’t have to be afraid, you’re not the only one. Many users are reporting this issue online and it’s not the first time it’s happened: CCleaner has already given problems in the past with antivirus programs recognizing the program as being infected. And for one of the most popular computer programs used by users, this is certainly not good news.
For those who don’t know, CCleaner is a program developed by the Piriform company that helps you keep your PC clean of unwanted files. What does this mean? It cleans up all the photos, documents and videos we have saved on our PC but haven’t opened or used for a long time. CCleaner has quickly established itself as one of the most appreciated apps, but it hasn’t always been seen in a good light by Microsoft. In fact, in addition to being a program developed by a third-party company, in some cases it performs too thorough a cleaning, creating problems for the PC’s operation.
Windows 10, is CCleaner really a dangerous app?
The colleagues at Bleeping Computer, a website specializing in computer security (and more), tried to ask for explanations directly from those directly involved: Microsoft and CCleaner.
On the one hand, Microsoft warns that Microsoft Defender aims to protect users from any external attack, and for this reason it blocks or reports apps that internally suggest the use of other programs, especially if they have little to do with the main one.
The developers of CCleaner, on the other hand, assure that this is a false positive and are ready to discuss with Microsoft to solve the problem. What is a false positive? It is an error on the part of antivirus that mistakes a legitimate program for infected software.
False positives occur when the same string chosen as a signature for a certain threat is also present in the offending program.