Adobe Patches Zero-Day Vulnerability

Posted 03/15/2009 at 9:59am | by Justin Kerr

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If you haven’t done so already, make sure your Adobe reader has checked for, and downloaded the latest updates. Adobe has finally released a patch for the zero day scripting vulnerability in its PDF software. The patch for version 9 hit the net a bit earlier than expected, but not a moment too soon to combat this now critically exploited weakness which has been in the wild now since December 2008. The patches for Version 7 & 8 are still planned for March 18th and users of this version would be advised to either upgrade to 9.1 or consider Foxit Reader.

The news was posted by Adobe blogger David Lenoe. "Today, we posted the Adobe Reader 9.1 and Acrobat 9.1 update, which resolves the recent JBIG2 security issue (CVE-2009-0658), including the 'no-click' variant of the vulnerability." "We encourage all Adobe Reader users to download and install the free Adobe Reader 9.1."

For those that haven’t been following the details of the exploit, the vulnerability is a result of an array indexing error in the processing of JBIG2 streams. Hackers have found a way to corrupt arbitrary memory using the PDF format and take control of compromised systems. The lesson learned here if we didn’t know it already, don’t take candy, or PDF’s from strangers.