BrianH123

Thank you Hazelnut, Derek891, and Trium for the constructive responses. We are consulting an employment lawyer. I'm basically here seeking the answer to an IT-related, non-legal question: What is a good source of information to show a firing appeals board or an IT department to "prove" (inductively) that CCleaner is not malware? I may have confused people here by raising legal issues in my posts. I did that because I thought the firing was so egregious it might motivate a compassionate person to answer my non-legal question. But I'm just here for the answer to the IT-related, non-legal question in bold above. This question is just a small part of the case, and this forum is not the only place I'm consulting for the answer (thank God, given some of the responses I've received). For anyone whom I've distracted by mentioning the firing, just pretend that a firing isn't involved. Just assume that you need to prove to a technologically unsophisticated person in authority that CCleaner is not "malware". What would be a good way to do that? MTA, I really feel I need to respond to your post. I'll try to keep it brief. Any time you find yourself starting a paragraph with "Not intending to be rude here", pause for a second and think if perhaps you might be intending to do just that but just wishing to inoculate yourself from the accusation. I have five days to get a letter written to appeal this firing, and you're muddying the waters here with accusations of deceit on my part, attempts to play "Devil's Advocate", and raising of possibilities that aren't consistent with the facts. (For example, you raised the possibility that my friend downloaded malware packaged as CCleaner. But as I mentioned in my post, he was caught by a firewall block on Piriform.com.) There's no question that my friend was fired because the "security team" believed (or at least pretended to) that CCleaner, as downloaded from Piriform.com, is malware. And he was told that in person when he was terminated. But for anyone who doesn't want to accept the facts of the firing as I've relayed them but has useful information anyway, please just pretend that a firing didn't happen and consider the question as rephrased in the second bold sentence above.

Forgive me, but if the policy is: “Don’t install software without permission”, why didn’t my friend’s termination notice say the reason for his termination was “____ installed software without permission”? Instead, the termination notice accused my friend of “suspicious activity” and “loading MalWare” [sic]. Is there anyone here who believes that CCleaner is “malware”? I’m a 47-years-old computer programmer who started programming professionally when he was 15. I don’t use registry cleaners, but the idea that anyone in the IT field could consider a registry cleaner “malware” is ludicrous. If language is to mean anything, we need to distinguish between software that is intended to do harm (ransom-ware, click-fraud clients, botnet clients, rootkits, viruses, etc.) from a utility that if misused can cause damage. Just googling “malware” brings up a definition that any literate person can see not include registry cleaners. In my original post I alluded to “procedural problems” with the firing, but I left those out in an attempt to get people’s opinion on the employer's factual claim that CCleaner is “malware”. But here are some of procedural problems: 1. CCleaner was already installed on my friend’s computer when he went to work for this company two years ago. 2. Seven weeks ago, his computer was wiped clean and upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7. CCleaner was not reinstalled. Nor was anyone told not to install it. 3. As far as I know, there is no prohibition against installing software on the company’s computers. What is prohibited is installing software that is prohibited. And the way they prohibit software is by putting a firewall block on the site that hosts the software. 4. Three weeks ago, my friend went to the Piriform website and downloaded CCleaner. There was no firewall block in place. There was no notice that this was prohibited software. 5. Some time after my friend installed CCleaner, the IT department decided it didn’t want people installing CCleaner. It didn’t inform anyone of that. It just blocked the Piriform website. 6. Some time after the IT department blocked the Piriform website, CCleaner performed an automatic check for an upgrade. (Thanks, Piriform.) The automatic check (not initiated by my friend) was blocked by the firewall. The IT department was alerted when the block occurred. At that point my friend was accused of “suspicious activity” and loading “MalWare”. If it’s a firable offense to attempt to contact a website that’s on the block list (even though the block list isn’t published in advance), then it’s CCleaner that should be fired, not my friend because it was CCleaner that attempted to contact the website when it did its automatic check. Piriform, I hope you give CCleaner a generous severance package. Just to be perfectly clear, I can understand why an IT department wouldn't want to allow users to install a registry cleaner. If I were running their IT department, I'd probably prohibit it too. But I wouldn't call it "malware" and I wouldn't recommend firing someone who installed it if they installed it before I prohibited it.

I'm writing on behalf of a friend who was fired today because he installed CCleaner. His employer's crack security team considers it "malware". My friend has just seven days to appeal his termination. I would be extremely grateful for any advice from Piriform employees and customers on how my friend might go about appealing his termination. Below is an exact quote from my friend's termination notice. The only change I made was to replace my friend's name with underscores. I didn't alter any punctuation, grammar, or capitalization: "CCleaner" was mentioned verbally as the "malware" in question. I don't think he has that in writing, unfortunately. Please volunteer any information and suggestions on how we might go about convincing the appeal board and/or the security department (who will probably be consulted by the appeal board) that CCleaner is not "malware". Are there endorsements from respected authorities we can use? Would Piriform like to give this employer a call? (Probably not, but I thought I'd ask.) Does CCleaner pose a risk to the logical integrity of the registry? (That wouldn't make it malware, of course. The only reason I ask is to try to discern why an IT department might not want it installed.) Please don't feel limited to these questions and volunteer any advice that could be helpful. If my friend doesn't get his job back, we intend to publicize this as widely as possible, including the employer's name. The firing was flawed on several procedural grounds as well, which I haven't gone into but which even more ridiculous than the factual issue.