McAfee patches spam relay flaw

McAfee has begun to plug a hole in its hosted anti-malware service that allowed spam to be relayed though subscribers, a feat that caused customer email and IP addresses to be blacklisted.

The flaw in the update server for SaaS for Total Protection, dubbed RumourServer, could be exploited to force connecting nodes to deliver spam.

“The second issue has been used to allow spammers to bounce off of affected machines, resulting in an increase of outgoing email from them,” McAfee security researcher director Dave Marcus said in a statement.

The flaw did not grant access to user data, however users who first reported the flaw said they were made aware after their IP and email addresses were added to blacklists for sending spam.

The update will be made server-side and will not require user intervention.

A separate hole could allow attackers to exploit an ActiveX control and remote execute code. This vulnerability was patched in an August update.