Personal Firewall 9Application · Kingsoft

CVE-2010-5164

MEDIUM · 5.3 CVSS v3.1 Published 2012-08-25
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
55/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
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
Race condition in KingSoft Personal Firewall 9 Plus 2009.05.07.70 on Windows XP allows local users to bypass kernel-mode hook handlers, and execute dangerous code that would otherwise be blocked by a handler but not blocked by signature-based malware detection, via certain user-space memory changes during hook-handler execution, aka an argument-switch attack or a KHOBE attack. NOTE: this issue is disputed by some third parties because it is a flaw in a protection mechanism for situations where a crafted program has already begun to execute

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 · moderate confidence

A race condition in KingSoft Personal Firewall 9 Plus allows local users to bypass kernel-mode hook handlers by modifying user-space memory during the brief window when hook handlers are executing. This 'argument-switch' or 'KHOBE' attack exploits timing to evade the firewall's signature-based detection while executing code that would normally be blocked.

MitigationReplace KingSoft Personal Firewall 9 Plus with a current, actively-maintained firewall solution; consider upgrading from Windows XP to a supported operating system as the underlying platform is obsolete.

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
Personal Firewall 9Application
Affected:= 2009.05.07.70

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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
Low

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

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. Verify KingSoft Personal Firewall 9 Plus installation
    Check your system for the presence of KingSoft Personal Firewall 9 Plus by looking in Add/Remove Programs (Windows XP) or Programs and Features (later Windows versions), or search for the program in your installed applications.
    Affected if The application is listed as installed on the system
  2. Identify the installed version number
    Right-click on the KingSoft Personal Firewall icon in the system tray or access the program's About/Help section to view the version information. Alternatively, check the program's executable properties by locating the main executable file.
    Affected if The displayed version matches 2009.05.07.70 exactly
  3. Confirm the specific build variant
    Verify whether the installed version is specifically 'KingSoft Personal Firewall 9 Plus' as the vulnerability affects the Plus variant.
    Affected if The program is the Plus variant of version 2009.05.07.70

You are affected if KingSoft Personal Firewall 9 Plus version 2009.05.07.70 is installed on your system.

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
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Replace KingSoft Personal Firewall 9 Plus with a current, actively-maintained firewall solution; consider upgrading from Windows XP to a supported operating system as the underlying platform is obsolete.

Fix this in Personal Firewall 9 Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
9.0 hours of engineering $1,600
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
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-2010-5164 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
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