How to control a BlackBerry Enterprise Server with just a PDF

Sorry, I’m not actually going to tell you how to do that.

But Research In Motion (RIM), the company who make the BlackBerry smartphones beloved by corporate workers worldwide, has warned of a vulnerability in the way its devices handles PDF files which could allow hackers to remotely execute code.

According to a security advisory issued by the firm, hackers could send email message with an attached PDF file that, when opened by a BlackBerry mobile user, could cause code to be launched on the computer that hosts the BlackBerry Attachment Service. Of course, this isn’t the first time that this kind of problem with RIM’s BlackBerry has bubbled up.

RIM is advising that companies disable PDF file processing on the BlackBerry server until the…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.