PSA: it’s time to replace WinRAR as a consequence of a giant safety vulnerability

If you employ WinRAR, it’s time to replace to the newest model after a severe safety vulnerability has been found that’s already in use by attackers. Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) has discovered that a number of government-backed hacking teams have been exploiting the WinRAR vulnerability since early 2023.

“A patch is now available, but many users still seem to be vulnerable,” says TAG in a blog post detailing the WinRAR exploit. “TAG has observed government-backed actors from a number of countries exploiting the WinRAR vulnerability as part of their operations.”

WinRAR versions 6.24 and 6.23 each embody a repair for the safety gap, however the app doesn’t replace robotically, so that you’ll should manually obtain and set up the patch. That’s proper, it’s 2023, and one of the vital in style Windows apps nonetheless doesn’t have an auto-update function.

The WinRAR vulnerability permits attackers to execute arbitrary code when a Windows consumer opens one thing like a PNG file inside a ZIP archive. TAG describes the safety exploit as “a logical vulnerability within WinRAR causing extraneous temporary file expansion when processing crafted archives, combined with a quirk in the implementation of Windows’ ShellExecute when attempting to open a file with an extension containing spaces.”

The exploit has additionally been used to target cryptocurrency buying and selling accounts since April 2023. “The widespread exploitation of the WinRAR bug highlights that exploits for known vulnerabilities can be highly effective, despite a patch being available,” says TAG. “These recent campaigns exploiting the WinRAR bug underscore the importance of patching and that there is still work to be done to make it easy for users to keep their software secure and up-to-date.”

This isn’t the primary time a serious WinRAR vulnerability has been found. In 2019, cybersecurity firm Check Point Research discovered a 19-year-old code execution exploit that would give attackers full management over a sufferer’s pc.

You can obtain the newest WinRAR replace right here, or, if you happen to’re operating Windows 11, you could possibly merely use the native help for RAR 7-zip information that was included within the newest OS replace.