CVE-2024-13990 (GCVE-0-2024-13990)
Vulnerability from cvelistv5
Published
2025-09-19 18:54
Modified
2025-09-19 20:14
Severity ?
9.3 (Critical) - CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CWE
  • CWE-295 - Improper Certificate Validation
  • CWE-347 - Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature
Summary
MicroWorld eScan AV's update mechanism failed to ensure authenticity and integrity of updates: update packages were delivered and accepted without robust cryptographic verification. As a result, an on-path attacker could perform a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack and substitute malicious update payloads for legitimate ones. The eScan AV client accepted these substituted packages and executed or loaded their components (including sideloaded DLLs and Java/installer payloads), enabling remote code execution on affected systems. MicroWorld eScan confirmed remediation of the update mechanism on 2023-07-31 but versioning details are unavailable. NOTE: MicroWorld eScan disputes the characterization in third-party reports, stating the issue relates to 2018–2019 and that controls were implemented then.
References
disclosure@vulncheck.comhttps://arstechnica.com/security/2024/04/hackers-infect-users-of-antivirus-service-that-delivered-updates-over-http/
disclosure@vulncheck.comhttps://blog.avast.com/leading-the-charge-against-guptiminer
disclosure@vulncheck.comhttps://securityaffairs.com/162228/breaking-news/escan-antivirus-mitm-attack.html
disclosure@vulncheck.comhttps://thehackernews.com/2024/04/escan-antivirus-update-mechanism.html
disclosure@vulncheck.comhttps://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-hijack-antivirus-updates-to-drop-guptiminer-malware/
disclosure@vulncheck.comhttps://www.escanav.com/en/about-us/eScan-update-advisory.asp
disclosure@vulncheck.comhttps://www.gendigital.com/blog/insights/research/guptiminer-hijacking-antivirus-updates-for-distributing-backdoors-and-casual-mining
disclosure@vulncheck.comhttps://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/microworld-escan-av-insecure-update-mechanism-allows-mitm-replacement-of-updates
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version
MicroWorld Technologies eScan AV Version: *
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