Critical bug in Acrobat Reader
7 November 2008
by
Gunthy
Filed under
Security + Software
Tuesday (yes I know… I’m late 
), there has been a report of a critical security vulnerability in Adobe’s Acrobat Reader. The bug affect version 8.x and probably also all prior versions. Version 9 is said to be not affected.
The hole is exploited through the use of a specially constructed pdf-file using javascript. When successful, the attack could make it so that the attacker can execute code with the user credentials of the person opening the malafied pdf.
Adobe has already issued a security patch for version 8.1.2 which resolves the problem. Alternatively, users can also disable the use of javascript in pdfs in the Preferences menu.
Originally, the exploit was discovered in one of Adobe Reader’s alternatives, called Foxit Reader. By using a similar crafted pdf-file, the same kind of attack could be executed. At first it was assumed that only this Foxit Reader was affected, since the way the javascript was constructed didn’t pose a problem in Acrobat Reader.
However when security analysts examined the code in more detail, they found that also Adobe’s version was being affected. It is true that the bug is not being caused by exactly the same code, but nevertheless this hole was exploitable here as well.
