It is a blow to reputation when a security company needs protection because malware has compromised its software. That is what happened to Avast. Its CCCleaner for Windows software was harmed when hackers installed a backdoor in it. More than two million users downloaded the affected program before Avast caught on. The company patched the hole but now it needs to reach the users with the update. The lesson here is that no one is safe and one must stay on alert all of the time. Hackers are a fact of life on the internet and they will never go away. Companies can make it harder for them to succeed but they cannot guarantee a program is tamper-proof. Security companies, especially, need vigilance because they have set themselves up as protectors.