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ClamavApplication

CVE-2009-1241

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v2.0 Published 2009-04-03
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 0.95 or later.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Unspecified vulnerability in ClamAV before 0.95 allows remote attackers to bypass detection of malware via a modified RAR archive.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

ClamAV versions prior to 0.95 contain a vulnerability in their RAR archive parsing that allows attackers to craft modified RAR archives containing malware that evade detection by the antivirus engine. The vulnerability is in the unspecified RAR archive handling logic that fails to properly analyze malformed or specially crafted RAR files.

MitigationUpgrade ClamAV to version 0.95 or later, which contains the fix for RAR archive detection bypass. Ensure signature databases are also updated after the upgrade.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
ClamavApplication
Affected:< 0.95

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Partial
Integrity
Partial
Availability
Partial

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check installed ClamAV version
    Run 'clamd --version' or 'clamscan --version' to retrieve the exact version number of ClamAV installed on the system
    Affected if The version displayed is less than 0.95 (for example, 0.94, 0.94.1, 0.94.2, etc.)
  2. Verify RAR archive support is enabled
    Check if ClamAV has RAR detection enabled by examining the clamd.conf or freshclam.conf files for 'ScanRAR' directive, or test by attempting to scan a benign RAR file
    Affected if RAR scanning is enabled (ScanRAR is set to yes or RAR files are being parsed) on a ClamAV version prior to 0.95
  3. Confirm RAR utility availability
    Verify that the 'unrar' utility is installed on the system and accessible to ClamAV, as ClamAV relies on it to decompress RAR archives for scanning
    Affected if The unrar binary exists and ClamAV version is below 0.95, meaning malformed RAR files could bypass detection

A user is affected if they are running ClamAV version 0.94.x or earlier with RAR archive scanning enabled, as specially crafted RAR files containing malware could evade detection.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Upgrade available Upgrade to 0.95 or later
Fixed in 0.95
Interim mitigation

Upgrade ClamAV to version 0.95 or later, which contains the fix for RAR archive detection bypass. Ensure signature databases are also updated after the upgrade.

Fix this in Clamav Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
10.0 hours of engineering $1,750
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,800.

Scan for this in your stack

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dbcve dependency scanner

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2009-1241 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data