Development status Available Operating system | Written in C++ | |
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Developer(s) nickthegeek, windycity, wolfpackmars2, romulus9, jpetroules, gotschai, bleeblap Initial release October 2001; 15 years ago (2001-10) Stable release 2.7.2 (Build r326) / 19 October 2013; 3 years ago (2013-10-19) | ||
CamStudio is an open-source screencasting program for Microsoft Windows released as free software. The software renders videos in an AVI format. It can also convert these AVIs into Flash Video format, embedded in SWF files. CamStudio is written in C++, but CamStudio 3 will be developed in C#. The program has distributed malware and harmful viruses via the installer.
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History
The original CamStudio was released as an open source product by RenderSoft software in October 2001. The source code license was converted to the GNU General Public License in December 2002 with release 1.8. The Source code of versions 1.0, 1.4 and 2.0 are still available at SourceForge.
In 2003, the company was acquired by eHelp Corporation who owned a competing product called RoboDemo (now called Adobe Captivate). eHelp Corporation released an updated version as CamStudio 2.1 under a proprietary software license only and removed the ability to create SWFs. A succession of acquisitions led to the company being owned by Adobe.
Development of CamStudio 2.0 (the last open-source version) was resumed and released as free software again in September 2007 with the CamStudio 2.5 Beta 1 release. Accordingly, it was re-branded as CamStudio Open Source.
CamStudio 3 is a complete rewrite of the project in the pre-alpha stages of development as of April 19, 2010.
Malicious software
There have been ongoing reports about malicious code contained in some binaries of the software. In January 2014, the binary on the webpage was reported to be infected with the trojan, Artemis!0FEA2B12900D.
This edit from Nick Smith, the "caretaker" of CamStudio, "to finance future development, CamStudio has chosen to use an ad-supported installer offering other free software during the installation process. Regardless of what AV software is reporting, CamStudio unequivocally is *not* infected with a trojan or any other malicious software. It is possible that software offered via the installer could be triggering the alert, but CamStudio and the installer are both clean."
Comodo blocked "CamStudio_Setup_v2.7.2_r326_(build_19Oct2013).exe" from installing, stating that it had a "Application.Win32.InstallCore.BWAN@1" infection. Nick Smith suggested disabling Comodo. Later, "PC Utilities Pro – PC Optimizer Pro" was reportedly being installed and being run without people's permission. Systems were infected with the following: "PUP.Optional.Delta.A", "PUP.Optional.Spigot.A", "PUP.Optional.InstallCore.A", "Rogue.Multiple", "PUP.Optional.CrossRider.A".
In 2013, Google-run website Virustotal declared that CamStudio contains malicious software, where most anti-virus programs detected Artemis Trojan in CamStudio installer file.
At the beginning of 2015, CamStudio installation was still distributing a malicious software, though the prior uninfected installers could be obtained from SourceForge. The installer used by CamStudio also appeared to violate the conditions set forth in the first offer, not only changing all search engines and homepages to Yahoo - the stated actions - but installing a batch script to ensure that the homepages and search providers could never be set back.
In March 2016, the developers of CamStudio reported via forum post that the ad wrapper in the CamStudio installer had been removed and that it no longer offers third-party software or installs malware; however, they did not provide evidence of independent verification in the post. In a VirusTotal analysis of the installer acquired from the official download URL on 10 August 2016, AVware, Dr. Web and VIPRE antivirus tools said it was infected with "InstallCore" while the remaining 51 said it was clean.
Most recently, a VirusTotal analysis of the installer acquired from the official download URL on 14 February 2017, 31 out of 55 antivirus tools reported malicious content, mostly showing InstallCore.