{"id":165,"date":"2009-02-25T16:41:10","date_gmt":"2009-02-25T16:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/?p=165"},"modified":"2009-02-25T16:41:10","modified_gmt":"2009-02-25T16:41:10","slug":"serious-unpatched-security-vulnerability-in-adobe-reader-and-acrobat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/2009\/02\/25\/serious-unpatched-security-vulnerability-in-adobe-reader-and-acrobat\/","title":{"rendered":"Serious Unpatched Security Vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">UPDATE #2: Adobe has now released patches for versions 7, 8 and 9 of Acrobat and Reader for both Windows and Mac platforms.  Please refer to the links below.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a title=\"Adobe Windows downloads\" href=\"http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/support\/downloads\/product.jsp?product=1&amp;platform=Windows\" target=\"_blank\">Click here for Windows<\/a><br \/>\n<a title=\"Adobe Mac downloads\" href=\"http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/support\/downloads\/product.jsp?product=1&amp;platform=Mac\" target=\"_blank\"> Click here for Mac<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">UPDATE #1: Adobe has released version 9.1 for Windows and Mac platforms.  A patch for older versions is expected on or around March 25th.  If you&#8217;re running version 9, you can open your existing Adobe application and then click on &#8216;Check for Updates&#8217; in the Help menu.  You can also get the update directly from their website (you must already be at version 9).<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">You can also download and install the latest version of Adobe right from their home page.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">A significant security weakness was recently discovered in the widely used Adobe Reader and Acrobat applications.<span> <\/span>This weakness affects all versions from 9 and below.<span> <\/span>The immediate concern is that Adobe has no available fix (targeted for March 11<sup>th<\/sup>) yet malicious individuals are <strong>already exploiting the weakness<\/strong> and infecting systems.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Simply opening an <strong>infected PDF document can infect your system<\/strong>.<span> <\/span>Once infected, an attacker can silently access\/control your computer and steal information, etc.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The aforementioned Adobe products on all platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux) are vulnerable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong> What can you do to reduce the chances of getting infected by a rogue Adobe document?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;\"><span>1)<span style=\"font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-family: \"> <\/span><\/span>You can disable the use of JavaScript in Adobe Reader and Acrobat (this is not 100% effective but will provide increased protection).<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-left: 0.5in;\"><em>For Windows:<\/em> Open Adobe Acrobat Reader, click on Edit and then Preferences.<br \/>\nClick on JavaScript in the left-most column and then uncheck the box next to &#8220;Enable Acrobat JavaScript&#8221;.<span> <\/span>Click OK.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-left: 0.5in;\"><em>For Macs:<\/em> Open Adobe Acrobat Reader then click Adobe Reader (on the Menulet) and then Preferences. Click on JavaScript in the left-most column and then uncheck the box next to &#8220;Enable Acrobat JavaScript&#8221;.<span> <\/span>Click OK.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;\"><span>2)<span style=\"font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-family: \"> <\/span><\/span>Do not access PDF documents from &#8220;untrusted&#8221; or suspicious sources particularly web sites and unsolicited email attachments.<span> <\/span>(This actually applies to <em>any <\/em>type of file)<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">This posting will be updated once a fix from Adobe is available and\/or if there are any significant changes in this situation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">BTW, Adobe just released patches for its popular Flash Player so you should update this application ASAP if you actively use it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UPDATE #2: Adobe has now released patches for versions 7, 8 and 9 of Acrobat and Reader for both Windows and Mac platforms. Please refer to the links below. Click here for Windows Click here for Mac UPDATE #1: Adobe has released version 9.1 for Windows and Mac platforms. A patch for older versions is expected on or around March 25th. If you&#8217;re running version 9, you can open your existing Adobe application and then click on &#8216;Check for Updates&#8217; in the Help menu. You can also get the update directly from their website (you must already be at version &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/2009\/02\/25\/serious-unpatched-security-vulnerability-in-adobe-reader-and-acrobat\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Serious Unpatched Security Vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security","category-software"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ph2nPL-2F","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}