CVE-2018-11246
📋 TL;DR
K7AntiVirus Premium 15.1.0.53 has a memory leak vulnerability in its K7TSMngr.exe component. This allows attackers to cause denial of service by exhausting system memory resources. Users of K7AntiVirus Premium 15.1.0.53 are affected.
💻 Affected Systems
- K7AntiVirus Premium
📦 What is this software?
Antivrius by K7computing
Enterprise Security by K7computing
Total Security by K7computing
Ultimate Security by K7computing
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Complete system crash or freeze due to memory exhaustion, potentially requiring hard reboot and causing data loss or service disruption.
Likely Case
Gradual performance degradation leading to application instability or crashes, requiring manual intervention to restart affected services.
If Mitigated
Minimal impact with proper monitoring and restart policies in place; memory usage spikes would trigger alerts before critical failure.
🎯 Exploit Status
Memory leaks typically require specific conditions or repeated triggering to cause significant impact; not easily weaponized for remote code execution.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: Versions after 15.1.0.53
Vendor Advisory: https://support.k7computing.com/index.php?/selfhelp/view-article/Advisory-issued-on-6th-January-2021
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Open K7AntiVirus Premium. 2. Check for updates in the application. 3. Install available updates. 4. Restart the computer to complete installation.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Restart K7TSMngr Service
windowsPeriodically restart the K7TSMngr service to clear accumulated memory
Restart-Service -Name K7TSMngr
sc stop K7TSMngr && sc start K7TSMngr
Memory Monitoring and Alerting
windowsMonitor K7TSMngr.exe memory usage and restart when thresholds are exceeded
# Use Task Manager or Performance Monitor to track memory usage
# Set up alerts for K7TSMngr.exe memory > specified threshold
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement regular restart schedules for K7TSMngr.exe service during maintenance windows
- Deploy memory monitoring with automated restart triggers when memory usage exceeds safe thresholds
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check K7AntiVirus Premium version in application settings or Control Panel > Programs and FeaturesCheck Version:
wmic product where name="K7AntiVirus Premium" get versionVerify Fix Applied:
Verify version is updated beyond 15.1.0.53 and monitor K7TSMngr.exe memory usage over time for stability📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- High memory usage alerts for K7TSMngr.exe
- Application crash logs related to K7AntiVirus
- System event logs showing memory pressure warnings
Network Indicators:
- None - this is a local memory management issue
SIEM Query:
EventID=1000 OR EventID=1001 AND SourceName="Application Error" AND ProcessName="K7TSMngr.exe"