Sophos Antivirus Could Be Vulnerable

What antivirus software are you currently making use of? The debate on whether or not it is worth using a free Antivirus against paying for antivirus software, is one that continues on almost a daily basis. There are also so many antivirus vendors around that different people feel comfortable using different antivirus products. Everyone does agree on the factor that you should keep your antivirus up to date, the reason being is that new viruses are coming out all the time and the updated antivirus versions are able to detect the new viruses. Remember that hackers are attempting to bypass the security restrictions on antivirus software all the time. Sometimes even antivirus software may be prone to vulnerabilities. This is what happened to Sophos antivirus last year and new information with regard to this vulnerability has recently been made available.

The Sophos antivirus is unfortunately prone to remote denial of service vulnerabilities, this is due to the factor that the application fails to handle certain distorted files in the correct manner. This basically poses a risk for users in that some of their computer resources may suddenly be unavailable with no explanation. Another symptom of this sort of attack is that your computer may start responding so slowly to commands that it really freaks you out.

Some of the vulnerable systems include: Sophos Antivirus for Linux 4.33, Sophos Anti-Virus for Unix and Netware 0, Sophos Anti-Virus for UNIX 0, Sophos Anti-Virus for OS X 0, Sophos Antivirus for Linux 4.33, Sophos Anti-Virus for Windows 0 as well as for Sophos Anti-Virus for Windows NT/9x 0. Some of the files of Windows NT include the following: acledit.dll , abiosdsk.sys , crystal.exe as well as DISKCOPY.COM. 

The cyber criminals lurking around our virtual world may take advantage of these issues in order to achieve their malicious objectives. They are also able to go as far as crashing the affected application. This will also affect authentic users who will not be able to gain access to the service, basically their access will be denied. This is not all online attackers may do, they may also execute arbitrary code and cause additional havoc.

Table 1. These versions are not vulnerable.

This vulnerability is highly critical and can result in serious ramifications for your computer and your life. This could make your life a nightmare and your computer will not be your friend, it will be your enemy in the form a computer you no longer recognize. Yes online attackers are more than capable of making you not recognize the performance of your own computer and much more. If you are wondering what the solution may be to this problem, do not despair for I shall enlighten you. Luckily for all of us, the vendor has released several updates which have been made available to the public, if you update to the latest version of the Sophos antivirus as well as apply the patches you should be fine.