CVE-2024-13990

critical

Description

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

https://www.escanav.com/en/about-us/eScan-update-advisory.asp

https://www.gendigital.com/blog/insights/research/guptiminer-hijacking-antivirus-updates-for-distributing-backdoors-and-casual-mining

https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/microworld-escan-av-insecure-update-mechanism-allows-mitm-replacement-of-updates

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-hijack-antivirus-updates-to-drop-guptiminer-malware/

https://thehackernews.com/2024/04/escan-antivirus-update-mechanism.html

https://securityaffairs.com/162228/breaking-news/escan-antivirus-mitm-attack.html

https://blog.avast.com/leading-the-charge-against-guptiminer

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/04/hackers-infect-users-of-antivirus-service-that-delivered-updates-over-http/

Details

Source: Mitre, NVD

Published: 2025-09-19

Updated: 2026-04-15

Risk Information

CVSS v2

Base Score: 6.8

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Severity: Medium

CVSS v3

Base Score: 8.1

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Severity: High

CVSS v4

Base Score: 9.3

Vector: 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

Severity: Critical

EPSS

EPSS: 0.00191