This vulnerability (CVE-2025-7006) is a use-after-free (CWE-590) in the scanning logic of Gen Digital's antivirus products, triggered by scanning a malformed Windows PE file. It leads to the use of stack memory after it has been freed, causing a denial-of-service condition by crashing the antivirus process. The affected products include Avast Antivirus, AVG Antivirus, Norton Antivirus, Avast One, and Avast Business Antivirus on Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms. The vulnerability is tied to virus definition builds before VPS 25022500. The shared virus definition update stream delivers the vulnerable scanning logic to all affected products. Updating virus definitions to VPS 25022500 or later mitigates the issue.

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability can cause a denial-of-service of the antivirus process, potentially disrupting antivirus protection. There is no indication of confidentiality or integrity impact. The attack vector is local (AV:L) with low attack complexity and no privileges required, but user interaction is needed. The overall impact is limited to availability.

Updating virus definitions to version VPS 25022500 or later fully mitigates this vulnerability. Since the scanning logic is delivered through a shared virus definition update stream, ensuring the antivirus product is updated to use virus definitions at or above this build removes the vulnerability. No additional action is required beyond applying the virus definition update. No official patch for the antivirus software itself is indicated; the vendor manages remediation through virus definition updates.