Product Affected Updater for McAfee Virusscan Command Line 6.0 This product is available attached to this document: https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB67513 As far as can be determined, there has only ever been one version of this application. Background It is stated by McAfee: NOTE: The attached script is only an example of how to automate the update process and is not officially supported by McAfee Technical Support. How can McAfee actually expect you to operate a virus scanner without a regular update process? Either we accept the product as effectively useless, or we produce a better update process. I would contend this is a more serious issue than the one presented in this exploit. Problem The updater script stores downloaded data in a known location under /tmp, which is vulnerable to a symlink based exploit. UVscan itself has been the subject of an identical symlink bug, for which McAfee released a security fix back in 2008. https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB51216 Full discussion and exploit has been documented here: http://www.lolware.net/uvscan.html Timeline November 9, 2010: Issue found circa November 17, 2010: Filled in McAfee's online support form. No reply. December 10, 2010: Several painful hours on the phone to McAfee. Got nowhere. January 7, 2010: Disclosure Fix A recommended replacement script is discussed at the above URL.
