DLL hijacking
This vulnerability takes advantage of the insecure DLL loading mechanism in the Windows operating system.
When software wants to load a particular DLL, it uses the LoadLibraryW()
Windows API call. It passes as a parameter to this function the name of the DLL it wishes to load.
We do not recommend using the LoadLibrary()
function, due to the fact that it is possible to replace the original DLL with another one that has the same name, and in that way to cause the program to run our DLL instead of the originally intended DLL.
In non-antivirus software, this vulnerability can have a low/medium severity level, but in the context of antivirus software, this vulnerability could reach critical severity, since we could actually cause the antivirus to load and run a malicious DLL. In certain cases, it could even cause the DLL to disable the antivirus itself or even aid in bypassing white-list mechanisms.
Important note
In order to exploit a DLL hijacking vulnerability...