JVN#81196185: The installer of Visual C++ Redistributable may insecurely load Dynamic Link Libraries

The installer of Visual C++ Redistributable provided Microsoft contains an issue with the DLL search path, which may lead to insecurely loading Dynamic Link Libraries in the same directory as the installer (CWE-427).
Microsoft states that the root cause of this vulnerability is “Application Directory (App Dir) DLL planting” and attacks exploiting this vulnerability are limited, thus there is no plan to release any security updates to address this issue.

For details, refer to “Application Directory (App Dir) DLL planting” released by Microsoft.

Impact

Arbitrary code may be executed with the privilege of the user invoking the installer.

Solution

Apply Workaround
Applying the following workarounds may mitigate the impacts of this vulnerability.

• Save the installer into a newly created directory, and confirm there are no unrelated files in the directory then invoke the installer.
• Make sure there are no suspicious files in the directory where the installer is saved.

Products Affected

• Visual C++ Redistributable