Adobe's Patch Day Update Corrects 15 Reader Flaws
SEVERITY: HIGH
13 April , 2010
SUMMARY:
This vulnerability affects: Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.3.1 and earlier, on Windows, Mac, and UNIX computers
How an attacker exploits it: By enticing your users into viewing a maliciously crafted PDF document
Impact: An attacker can execute code on your computer, potentially gaining control of it
What to do: Install Adobe's Reader and Acrobat 9.3.2 updates as soon as possible (or let Adobe's Updater do it for you).
EXPOSURE:
As part of their quarterly patch day cycle (which shares the same date as Microsoft Patch Day), Adobe released a security bulletin describing 15 security vulnerabilities (number based on CVE-IDs) that affect Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.3.1 and earlier, running on Windows, Mac, and UNIX computers. The flaws differ technically, but consist primarily of buffer overflow and memory corruption vulnerabilities, and share the same general scope and impact.
In the worst case, if an attacker can entice one of your users into downloading and opening a maliciously crafted PDF document (.pdf), he can exploit many of these vulnerabilities to execute code on that user's computer, with that user's privileges. If your user has local administrative privileges, the attacker gains full control of the user's machine.
Early this year, we predicted that attackers would increasingly target third-party applications, like Adobe Reader, in 2010. Recently, another security company proved this prediction true, showing that Adobe Reader is the most exploited application by attackers. For those reasons, we highly recommend you download and install these Reader updates immediately.
SOLUTION PATH
Adobe has released Reader and Acrobat 9.3.2 to fix these vulnerabilities on all platforms. You should download and deploy the corresponding updates immediately, or let the Adobe Software Updater program do it for you.
Posted on
Thu, April 15, 2010
by WatchGuard