Ailing Adobe applications

A vulnerability recently discovered in Adobe Reader and Acrobat poses an increasing risk, while appropriate bug fixes are still not available.

The most recently discovered vulnerability in Adobe Reader was first reported by Symantec on February 12th. On the same day, the code suitable for exploiting the bug was now available. The security company has observed that so far, attacks have mainly occurred in Japan that have traveled to the weak point of Adobe’s software. However, this does not mean that pests capable of exploiting newly discovered vulnerabilities cannot spread worldwide in the short term.

Adobe, meanwhile, acknowledged the existence of the vulnerability. The company says that the vulnerability affects Reader and Acrobat versions 7, 8, and 9, and is present on all platforms, so the vulnerability affects Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X operating systems. can also endanger computers. However, neither Symantec nor Adobe provided details of the error. All you can know for sure is that the vulnerability can be linked to JavaScript handling in Reader and Acrobat.

Symantec also reported on February 12 a trojan that could exploit a vulnerability in Adobe applications. A malicious program called Pidief.e, if it successfully exploits the vulnerability, installs additional computer malware on infected systems and then opens a backdoor on them.

To mitigate the risk of vulnerabilities, experts recommend disabling JavaScript support in Adobe Reader and Acrobat, where possible, which can be done in the software setup menu. Although this vulnerability could cause the browser to crash, it no longer allows malicious code to run unauthorized.

Adobe has promised that updates will be available for its Version 9 applications by March 11, but fixes for Version 7 and 8 are likely to be fixed only after that.