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Adobe's Reader and Acrobat Under Virus Threat, Fix a Month Away

by Tim Stevens on February 20, 2009 at 01:06 PM

Adobe Warns of Flaws in PDF Reader, Fix a Month AwayJust about every week we have some new browser vulnerability to report, with some new flaw appearing in IE or Firefox that could let a hacker access your precious infos. Today, it's another flaw that's been discovered, but not in one particular browser. Instead, it's in something that's rather more commonly used: Adobe's Reader and Acrobat. According to Adobe's indications, the software programs -- designed for viewing and creating PDF files -- have a serious security flaw that is currently being exploited by hackers!

The software suffers from what's called a buffer overflow attack, which could allow malicious PDF files to commandeer your computer and install bad software that could monitor your on- and offline doings. Adobe not only indicated that this is a possibility, but that hackers are currently exploiting this risk. As a result, Adobe has asked anti-virus companies to update their software to look for these files, as the company itself won't be able to provide an update until March 11. Yikes! So, until then, you may want to be especially selective when it comes to viewing PDFs. [From: Download Squad]

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Tags: adobe, adobe acrobat, adobe reader, AdobeAcrobat, AdobeReader, buffer overflow, BufferOverflow, hack, pdf, safety, security, top, vulnerability

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