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Adobe warns of Reader, Acrobat vulnerabilities

updated 01:45 pm EST, Fri February 20, 2009

Reader, Acrobat security


Several versions of Adobe's Reader and Acrobat utilities are presently exposed to a "critical" security vulnerability, the company writes. In a special alert, Adobe notes that the vulnerability -- the details of which are not being made public -- could be used to cause one of its applications to crash, and in turn gain control of a targeted computer. Some hackers may already be exploiting the flaw, Adobe says.

Patches are said to be in development, but may not become available until March 11th, and then only for Reader 9 and Acrobat 9. Updates for Reader and Acrobat 8 are due afterward, to be followed by fixes for Reader and Acrobat 7. Adobe is meanwhile said to be discussing the problem with anti-virus companies such as McAfee and Symantec, which may help to mitigate immediate threats.


by MacNN Staff

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TAGS :

 security, Graphics/Web Design, Adobe, PDF, Acrobat

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Comments

  1. TomSawyer

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2008

    +1
    02/20, 03:12pm | report spam | Reply |

    Under what OS?

    Windows, Mac, or all?

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +2
    02/20, 03:34pm | report spam | Reply |

    Re: under what OS?

    All platforms are said to be affected.

  1. dliup

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2006

    +2
    02/20, 04:42pm | report spam | Reply |

    No Impact to Most Macs

    Macs OSX default PDF reader is an Apple App called "preview", so this Adobe security vulnerabilities would not impact most Mac users.

  1. ophiochos

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 2006

    +2
    02/20, 09:17pm | report spam | Reply |

    no impact to most?

    so what? it's impact to some. Is your point that we should not hear about it or something?

  1. acorder

    Forum Regular

    Joined: Feb 2005

    +2
    02/21, 08:28am | report spam | Reply |

    Simply stated

    I think his point was that there's no impact to most Mac users. Period. Don't try to put words/intent in his mouth.

    And he's right, for the most part. I, on the other hand, work in publishing, so this is a very significant issue for me. And, since a couple of the machines out interns use are older and have Acrobat and Reader 7, it makes me a little nervous to wait numerous weeks. I'll be keeping up on this issue, for sure.

  1. pairof9s

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2008

    +1
    02/23, 07:40am | report spam | Reply |

    March 11th?!

    Adobe sure isn't busting their butts to get this fixed, are they?! Then only in successive versions.

    You'd think with all the money they've ripped off from Mac users for an inferior Acrobat over the years, they could hire an extra coder or two to fix this issue faster. Ah, mustn't upset the shareholders!

    /

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