"expose systems to remote attackers".
This is some terrible link bait and Tom's Hardware should be ashamed.
this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2025
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"a crafted archive can escape its intended extraction directory and write files to other locations on the system. When chained, this can escalate to full code execution under the same privileges as the user"
To be clear, you want Tom's Hardware to downplay the severity of this situation?
This is not a remote code exploit that makes you vulnerable simply because 7zip is installed, which is the implication of the headline.
So this is a linkbait headline, divorced from the reality of the situation.
Which is the bit I take issue with.
The article itself describes not only the actual problem, but the broader problem of this being a known fixed problem which won't be automatically addressed for most windows users.
Side note, winget is not bad as far as centralised package management goes for windows, and why I'm personally not at risk for this already long addressed 7zip issue.
Technically not a lie but still far from the truth. But it is still true that anyone using 7zip to extract archives downloaded from the internet should update.
This sounds great for social engineering but yeah it's a stretch to say exposed to remote attackers like it's 0click... and I'd imagine detection would be pretty easy if you monitor filewrites to sensitive locations or sensitive file extensions by 7zip.
POCs are described elsewhere as a pretty standard Get malicious file run through 7zip >>> Directory Traversal by spamming /../ >>> Drop a malicious DLL in System32 >>> Scheduled task to run the payload.
I bet this will be mostly just for shitting RATs onto machines via social engineering.Though there might be a nastier opportunity if a server is accepting zipped archives and running automated 7zip commandline extraction via script. That could get ugly.
Yeah, sure, and the remote hackers access my system how exactly to run 7-Zip? Do they use the well know ZIP-socket Linux exposes, designed to unzip stuff for random people in case of archival emergencies?