CVE-2010-5211
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 · uneditedUntrusted search path vulnerability in ALSee 6.20.0.1 allows local users to gain privileges via a Trojan horse patchani.dll file in the current working directory, as demonstrated by a directory that contains a .ani, .bmp, .cal, .hdp, .jpe, .mac, .pbm, .pcx, .pgm, .png, .psd, .ras, .tga, or .tiff file. NOTE: some of these details are obtained from third party information.
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 confidenceALSee 6.20.0.1 contains an untrusted search path vulnerability where the application loads a malicious DLL (patchani.dll) from the current working directory when processing image files (.ani, .bmp, .png, .tiff, etc.). This allows local users to escalate privileges by placing a Trojan horse DLL in a directory containing image files and tricking a user into opening that directory with ALSee.
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= 6.20.0.1CVSS 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
- M
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Complete
- Integrity
- Complete
- Availability
- Complete
AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Verify ALSee installation versionCheck the installed version of Estsoft Alsee on the system through Add/Remove Programs, program files directory, or by right-clicking the executable and viewing propertiesAffected if The installed version is exactly 6.20.0.1
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Locate the ALSee executableFind the full path to the ALSee executable (alssee.exe or similar) on the systemAffected if The executable path includes user-writable directories or the application is launched from directories containing untrusted image files
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Check for patchani.dll in common directoriesSearch for the presence of a file named patchani.dll in directories where image files are commonly stored (Downloads, Desktop, Documents, picture folders)Affected if patchani.dll exists in any directory that also contains image files and from which a user might open images with ALSee
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Inspect DLL search behaviorMonitor DLL loading when ALSee opens image files from different directories using process monitoring toolsAffected if The application loads DLLs from the current working directory rather than using safe absolute paths
A user is affected if ALSee version 6.20.0.1 is installed and image files are opened from directories where a malicious patchani.dll could be placed.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataEnsure the application uses safe DLL loading by specifying full paths to DLLs and removing the current working directory from the DLL search order, or avoid opening image files from untrusted directories.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2010-5211 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2010-5211 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- 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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