• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

Kai West, aka IntelBroker, indicted for cyberattacks causing $25M in damages

 | 

Cisco fixed critical ISE flaws allowing Root-level remote code execution

 | 

U.S. CISA adds AMI MegaRAC SPx, D-Link DIR-859 routers, and Fortinet FortiOS flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

CitrixBleed 2: The nightmare that echoes the 'CitrixBleed' flaw in Citrix NetScaler devices

 | 

Hackers deploy fake SonicWall VPN App to steal corporate credentials

 | 

Mainline Health Systems data breach impacted over 100,000 individuals

 | 

Disrupting the operations of cryptocurrency mining botnets

 | 

Prometei botnet activity has surged since March 2025

 | 

The U.S. House banned WhatsApp on government devices due to security concerns

 | 

Russia-linked APT28 use Signal chats to target Ukraine official with malware

 | 

China-linked APT Salt Typhoon targets Canadian Telecom companies

 | 

U.S. warns of incoming cyber threats following Iran airstrikes

 | 

McLaren Health Care data breach impacted over 743,000 people

 | 

American steel giant Nucor confirms data breach in May attack

 | 

The financial impact of Marks & Spencer and Co-op cyberattacks could reach £440M

 | 

Iran-Linked Threat Actors Cyber Fattah Leak Visitors and Athletes' Data from Saudi Games

 | 

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 50

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 529 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

Iran confirmed it shut down internet to protect the country against cyberattacks

 | 

Godfather Android trojan uses virtualization to hijack banking and crypto apps

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Hacking
  • Security
  • A couple of 10-Year-Old flaws affect Avast and AVG antivirus

A couple of 10-Year-Old flaws affect Avast and AVG antivirus

Pierluigi Paganini May 05, 2022

Researcher discovered a couple of high-severity security flaws that affect a driver used by Avast and AVG antivirus solutions.

SentinelOne researcher Kasif Dekel discovered two high-severity security vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2022-26522 and CVE-2022-26523, that affect a driver used by Avast and AVG antivirus solutions.

The bugs reside in the anti-rootkit kernel driver named aswArPot.sys which is the “Avast anti-rootkit,” digitally signed by AVAST Software. The driver was introduced in Avast version 12.1, which dates back to June 2012.

An attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to escalate privileges and potentially disable antivirus solutions.

“SentinelLabs has discovered two high severity flaws in Avast and AVG (acquired by Avast in 2016) that went undiscovered for 10 years affecting dozens of millions of users.” reads the advisory published by SentinelOne. “These vulnerabilities allow attackers to escalate privileges enabling them to disable security products, overwrite system components, corrupt the operating system, or perform malicious operations unimpeded.”

The vulnerable routine resides in a socket connection handler used in the kernel driver aswArPot.sys, the issue can be triggered by initiating a socket connection.

The second issue, tracked as CVE-2022-26523, resides in the function at aswArPot+0xbb94 and is very similar to the first vulnerability.

Experts pointed out that the flaws can be exploited to perform a sandbox escape in a second-stage browser attack.

“Due to the nature of these vulnerabilities, they can be triggered from sandboxes and might be exploitable in contexts other than just local privilege escalation. For example, the vulnerabilities could be exploited as part of a second stage browser attack or to perform a sandbox escape, among other possibilities.” concludes the experts. “As we have noted with similar flaws in other products recently (1, 2, 3), such vulnerabilities have the potential to allow complete take over of a device, even without privileges, due to the ability to execute code in kernel mode. Among the obvious abuses of such vulnerabilities are that they could be used to bypass security products.”

The flaws were reported by SentinelOne on December 20, 2021, and Avast fixed the issues with the release of antivirus version 22.1 on February 8, 2022.

The researchers pointed out that most Avast and AVG installs will be automatically updated, while air gapped or on-premise installs would be manually fixed as soon as possible.

Please vote for Security Affairs as the best European Cybersecurity Blogger Awards 2022 – VOTE FOR YOUR WINNERS

Vote for me in the sections “The Underdogs – Best Personal (non-commercial) Security Blog” and “The Tech Whizz – Best Technical Blog” and others of your choice.

To nominate, please visit: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfxxrxICiMZ9QM9iiPuMQIC-IoM-NpQMOsFZnJXrBQRYJGCOw/viewform  

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook

[adrotate banner=”9″][adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Avast)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]


facebook linkedin twitter

Avast AVG Hacking information security news IT Information Security Pierluigi Paganini Security Affairs Security News

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini June 26, 2025
Kai West, aka IntelBroker, indicted for cyberattacks causing $25M in damages
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini June 26, 2025
Cisco fixed critical ISE flaws allowing Root-level remote code execution
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    Kai West, aka IntelBroker, indicted for cyberattacks causing $25M in damages

    Cyber Crime / June 26, 2025

    Cisco fixed critical ISE flaws allowing Root-level remote code execution

    Security / June 26, 2025

    U.S. CISA adds AMI MegaRAC SPx, D-Link DIR-859 routers, and Fortinet FortiOS flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

    Security / June 26, 2025

    CitrixBleed 2: The nightmare that echoes the 'CitrixBleed' flaw in Citrix NetScaler devices

    Hacking / June 26, 2025

    Hackers deploy fake SonicWall VPN App to steal corporate credentials

    Hacking / June 25, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT