Windows PCs Exposed to Attacks by Critical HP Support Assistant Bugs

mood · Apr 4, 2020

Windows PCs Exposed to Attacks by Critical HP Support Assistant Bugs
April 4, 2020
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...ttacks-by-critical-hp-support-assistant-bugs/

Several critical HP Support Assistant vulnerabilities expose Windows computers to remote code execution attacks and could allow attackers to elevate their privileges or to delete arbitrary files following successful exploitation.

HP Support Assistant, marketed by HP as a "free self-help tool," is pre-installed on new HP desktops and notebooks, and it is designed to deliver automated support, updates, and fixes to HP PCs and printers.

"Improve the performance and reliability of your PCs and printers with automatic firmware and driver updates," HP says. "You can configure your options to install updates automatically or to notify you when updates are available."
Some critical flaws patched, others not so much
Security researcher Bill Demirkapi found ten different vulnerabilities within the HP Support Assistant software, including five local privilege escalation flaws, two arbitrary file deletion vulnerabilities, and three remote code execution vulnerabilities.
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HP PSIRT partially patched the vulnerabilities in December 2019 after receiving an initial disclosure report from Demirkapi during October 2019.
"It is important to note that because HP has not patched three local privilege escalation vulnerabilities, even if you have the latest version of the software, you are still vulnerable unless you completely remove the agent from your machine," Demirkapi explained in his detailed technical description.
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Several Critical Vulnerabilities on most HP machines running Windows

In this blog post, we’ll be looking at HP Support Assistant which is “pre-installed on HP computers sold after October 2012, running Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10 operating systems”. We’ll be walking through several vulnerabilities taking a close look at discovering and exploiting them.

Here is a table of contents to help navigate my research. In any case, I strongly suggest reading the General Discovery and General Exploitation sections as they provide significant foundational material important to understanding most of the vulnerabilities.
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Krusty · Apr 4, 2020

Oh great!

Krusty · Apr 4, 2020

I have always had HP Support Assistant protected by HitmanPro.Alert. I hope that is enough.

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Windows PCs Exposed to Attacks by Critical HP Support Assistant Bugs

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