The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has advised telecom consumers and other Information and Communications Technology (ICT) end users on the need to always enable automatic update features for AVAST and AVG antiviruses to prevent potential cyber vulnerabilities.
This was contained in a new advisory released by the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT), the cybersecurity centre for the telecom sector established by the Commission, in continuation of its resolve to always keep Nigerians safe in the cyber space.
The advisory noted that cyber vulnerability in AVAST and AVG Antiviruses can lead to attacks on millions of devices with high impact in terms of consequences to the ICT user. The threat types as a result of this vulnerability are Bypass Authentication, Remote Code Execution and Unauthorised Access while consequences range from Privilege Escalation, Bypass Security Products, Overwrite System Components and corrupting the Operating System.
According to CSIRT, researchers at SentinelOne security firm have discovered two potentially damaging vulnerabilities in AVAST and AVG antivirus products that allow attackers to escalate privileges enabling them to disable security products, overwrite system components, corrupt the operating system, or perform malicious operations unimpeded.