Avast Forum Hacked/unsecureapp.exe Issue

I started noticing a process on the PC called unsecureapp.exe a couple of days ago. I started doing research and found out it's associated with Windows Management Instrumentation service which is set to automatic by default in Windows XP. I did some looking around and lo and behold I found this:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=389527

Notice the dates on these posts...almost all within the last week. The thread starts getting really interesting down around post number 9 where others start to say the same thing happened to them with unsecureapp.exe. Post 11 clinches that it is avast causing unsecureapp.exe to run. This is unnerving, since it never happened before, and I didn't update the program in this time frame.

Anyway, so I decided to search google for more on unsecureapp.exe and avast. I noticed a post from the avast forum about the same thing and clicked on it, and this is what I got:

https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=96253.0

The avast forum has been hacked. I am kind of in stunned disbelief about this. First this process is running which I know avast has all the sudden started and then I find out that the avast forum has been hacked and my username and password likely stolen.

What's going on here? Did avast download something onto the PC that started unsecureapp.exe after the attack on their forum site? The timing fits that's for sure. This is PR nightmare for avast I would think...

 

Apologies...

Unsecureapp.exe in the previous post should be unsecapp.exe. I was posting on a different image installation on this PC, which I restored to see if the process shows up in Task Manager in older images I have, and I had my mind on about 100 things. It did show up in all the ones from the last week. When I tried one from December, it didn't show up.

Still, can't get around the irony of the name of this process being used by avast, and I guess I got carried away...

 

plodr...

Thanks. True, it's not an avast process. It's a Windows process for developers for tying into Windows Management Instrumentation.

What I was trying to say is that on some PCs apparently avast is starting this process or at least something is responding to the update avast sent out after their forum was hacked. I even ran across a post on another site speculating that avast is for some reason using unsecapp.exe in response to the attack. Anyway, it's hard to tell, because the avast forum is down, and most users don't pay attention to Task Manager, anyway.

I don't know exactly what's going on, but unsecapp.exe is a pretty scary thing to see in Task Manager. I haven't actually ever noticed it until the last week, and I pay close attention to what runs on the PCs here at home. Also, unsecapp.exe has something to do with the internet (I believe through svchost.exe). From what I gather, this is how hackers get information off of PCs, by masking their process as a legit Windows one (running it under services.exe or svchost.exe or whatever...something that can't be cut off of the internet without losing system functionality).

The avast processes on the PCs here are AvastSvc.exe and AvastUI.exe. Those are the only two I believe...