If you’ve used a Windows system ever in your life then WinRaR is likely to have been part of the list of softwares you’ve come across. Which is why, you’d want to know that the popular tool used to extract heavy downloaded files had been plagued with a major bug that is likely to have affected over millions of PC users.
The company claims to have fixed the bug, which has been around for over 19 years, but the risk of its existence for almost two decades is sure to raise concerns among users.
This long-lasting bug has been first reported by researchers at Check Point Software Technologies, who found that a bug is likely to have creeped in with the support for a dated extension which became insecure long time back.
So what’s the bug hiding plain sight in WinRaR which has got everyone’s attention this week? The issue has lot to do with ACE format, which by renaming to a RaR extension, becomes the gateway for a malicious bug to enter your PC’s startup folder. The bug was then able to run on the system, whenever it was switched on.
They’ve even posted a short video talking about the bug and how it affects your computer.
WinRaR has been generally downloaded for free by most of the users, and it claims over 500 million users have downloaded and used the popular compression tool for files.
WinRaR seems to have accepted the issue reported by folks at Check Point, and quickly decided to stop supporting all ACE archives and released an updated version of WinRaR 5.70 beta 1 for the user to quickly download or at least update the existing version.
While the company has fixed the bug, or at least claim to have done it, we’re not sure how a bug has been left untouched for over 19 years, without anyone noticing its danger.
Also, it is possible that some percent of the 500 million WinRaR users are likely to have affected by the recently fixed bug, they just weren’t aware of it. WinRaR hasn’t given any details about possible damage, but it’s better if you just update to the latest version at the earliest.
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