RufusApplication · Akeo

CVE-2019-1010100

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.0 Published 2019-07-19
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 3.0 or later.
See remediation →
81/100
Remediation priority · High
No privileges

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
Akeo Consulting Rufus 3.0 and earlier is affected by: DLL search order hijacking. The impact is: Arbitrary code execution WITH escalation of privilege. The component is: Executable installers, portable executables (ALL executables on the web site). The attack vector is: CAPEC-471, CWE-426, CWE-427.

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

Akeo Consulting Rufus versions 3.0 and earlier are vulnerable to DLL search order hijacking, allowing attackers to place malicious DLLs in locations searched before legitimate DLLs. This enables arbitrary code execution with potential privilege escalation, likely because the installer runs with elevated privileges or the DLL loading occurs in a privileged context.

MitigationUpdate Rufus to a version newer than 3.0 which should contain the fix for DLL search order hijacking. Alternatively, ensure the application uses secure DLL loading practices (absolute paths, Safe DLL Search Mode disabled for privileged processes).

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
RufusApplication
Affected:<= 3.0

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
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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. Locate Rufus installation
    Search system for rufus.exe file - typically found in Program Files, Program Files (x86), or user-downloaded portable locations
    Affected if Rufus executable exists on the system
  2. Determine installed version
    Right-click rufus.exe, select Properties, view File Version field on Details tab; or use PowerShell: (Get-Item 'path\to\rufus.exe').VersionInfo.FileVersion
    Affected if Version displays as 3.0 or lower (for example 3.0, 2.20, 2.19)
  3. Check executable directory permissions
    Right-click the folder containing rufus.exe, go to Security tab, check which users have Write or Modify permissions
    Affected if Non-admin users can write files to the directory where rufus.exe resides
  4. Inspect for suspicious DLLs in application folder
    Open the folder containing rufus.exe, look for DLL files that should not be there (check file names against legitimate Rufus DLLs if known)
    Affected if Unexpected DLL files exist in the same folder as rufus.exe, especially if they were placed by an attacker

User is affected if Rufus version 3.0 or earlier is installed and the application directory or launch location is writable by untrusted users, allowing DLL search order hijacking to execute arbitrary code.

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 a release after 3.0
Interim mitigation

Update Rufus to a version newer than 3.0 which should contain the fix for DLL search order hijacking. Alternatively, ensure the application uses secure DLL loading practices (absolute paths, Safe DLL Search Mode disabled for privileged processes).

Fix this in Rufus Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation1.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
8.0 hours of engineering $1,390
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,224.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2019-1010100 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2019-1010100 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