Monday, February 17, 2025
HomeCVE/vulnerabilityFlaws in Popular Antivirus Softwares Let Attackers to Escalate Privileges

Flaws in Popular Antivirus Softwares Let Attackers to Escalate Privileges

Published on

SIEM as a Service

Follow Us on Google News

Security researchers from CyberARK discovered security bugs with anti-malware software that allows attackers to escalate privileges on an infected machine.

Bugs with anti-malware pose high risks than other applications, as it has high privileges that let attackers run malware at elevated privileges.

Cause for the Flaw

According to researchers, the main cause of the bug is with the default DACLs of the C:\ProgramData directory. On Windows used by the application to store data.

This process is not tied to a specific user, any user has read/write permissions on ProgramData instead of the %LocalAppData%, which is accessible by the current logged in user.

“So, if a non-privileged process created a directory in ProgramData that would be later used by a privileged process, we might have a security issue on our hands,” reads the blog post.

Researchers analyzed Avira’s AV which has two processes non-privileged & privileged process hat write to the same log file.

An attacker could exploit the privileged process to delete the file and create a symlink that would point to any arbitrary file on the target system with malicious content.

Also, the researchers analyzed McAfee antivirus which creates the “McAfee” folder, under the standard user control, but the local user could gain elevated permissions through a symlink attack.

“he implications of these bugs are often full privilege escalation of the local system. Due to the high privilege level of security products, an error in them could help malware to sustain its foothold and cause more damage to the organization.”

Following are the vulnerabilities discovered

  • Kaspersky CVE-2020-25045, CVE-2020-25044, CVE-2020-25043
  • McAfee CVE-2020-7250, CVE-2020-7310
  • Symantec CVE-2019-19548
  • Fortinet CVE-2020-9290
  • Checkpoint CVE-2019-8452
  • Trend Micro CVE-2019-19688, CVE-2019-19689 +3
  • Avira – CVE-2020-13903
  • Microsoft-CVE-2019-1161
  • Avast + F-Secure – Waiting for Mitre

You can follow us on LinkedinTwitterFacebook for daily Cybersecurity and hacking news updates.

Also Read

GitHub Launches Code Scanning Tool to Find Security Vulnerabilities – Available for All Users

Beware of the New Critical Zerologon Vulnerability in The Windows Server

Gurubaran
Gurubaran
Gurubaran is a co-founder of Cyber Security News and GBHackers On Security. He has 10+ years of experience as a Security Consultant, Editor, and Analyst in cybersecurity, technology, and communications.

Latest articles

CISA Warns of Active Exploitation of Apple iOS Security Flaw

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued an urgent advisory warning of...

Threat Actors Exploiting Modified SharpHide Tool to Conceal Registry Entries

Threat actors are leveraging a modified version of the SharpHide tool to create hidden...

IDOR Vulnerability in ExHub Allows Attackers to Alter Hosting Configurations

A security researcher recently uncovered a high-risk Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR) vulnerability in...

Linux Kernel 6.14 rc3 Released With The Fixes for Critical Issues

Linus Torvalds has announced the release of Linux Kernel 6.14-rc3, marking a critical milestone...

Supply Chain Attack Prevention

Free Webinar - Supply Chain Attack Prevention

Recent attacks like Polyfill[.]io show how compromised third-party components become backdoors for hackers. PCI DSS 4.0’s Requirement 6.4.3 mandates stricter browser script controls, while Requirement 12.8 focuses on securing third-party providers.

Join Vivekanand Gopalan (VP of Products – Indusface) and Phani Deepak Akella (VP of Marketing – Indusface) as they break down these compliance requirements and share strategies to protect your applications from supply chain attacks.

Discussion points

Meeting PCI DSS 4.0 mandates.
Blocking malicious components and unauthorized JavaScript execution.
PIdentifying attack surfaces from third-party dependencies.
Preventing man-in-the-browser attacks with proactive monitoring.

More like this

CISA Warns of Active Exploitation of Apple iOS Security Flaw

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued an urgent advisory warning of...

SocGholish Malware Dropped from Hacked Web Pages using Weaponized ZIP Files

A recent wave of cyberattacks leveraging the SocGholish malware framework has been observed using...

Lazarus Group Targets Developers Worldwide with New Malware Tactic

North Korea's Lazarus Group, a state-sponsored cybercriminal organization, has launched a sophisticated global campaign...