Over the past few weeks, critical security vulnerabilities have emerged in popular antivirus software, including antivirus engines from leading companies.
More specifically, protection solutions from FireEye, McAfee, Kaspersky , and AVG were found to be vulnerable to security holes that could allow attackers to execute malicious code on “protected” computers, bypassing the built-in security features of antivirus programs.
However, the list of vulnerable software does not end here, as TrendMicro's software is now being added, following the disclosure of critical vulnerabilities affecting the company's antivirus.
Tavis Ormand, a hacker with Google's Project Zero research team, managed to identify dangerous security vulnerabilities in TrendMicro software, which could be exploited to execute malicious code on any vulnerable system.
It took Ormandy a short amount of research time to identify the first remote code execution vulnerability affecting the software, which he notes allows the interception of all of the victims' passwords, without requiring any user interaction. After further analysis, the researcher was able to identify additional vulnerabilities in the software.
Ormandy says the risk is high as “An attacker could exploit the security vulnerabilities to gain access to the contents of the password manager embedded in Trend Micro’s solution. Attackers could see the hashed passwords, as well as the plaintext domains to which they are associated.”
The Google researcher did not hesitate to strongly criticize TrendMicro, even making public his communications with company representatives, and expressing his disappointment at the failure to adequately protect users, which according to him stems from the failure to adopt basic security practices during the development of the program's code.
After the issue was made public, TrendMicro rushed to patch the vulnerability, immediately releasing an automatic update for antivirus users.
As is clear, the need for more effective solutions to the issue of online security is imperative and companies should look deeper into the problem, developing safer software that will leave no room for computer infection and guarantee effective user protection.
