Critical security hole in Adobe Acrobat PDF readers

Adobe has issued a security alert after a critical zero-day vulnerability was discovered in their popular PDF reading program which could allow hackers to take control of computers.

In a security bulletin issued yesterday, Adobe warned that the security hole would not be patched until 11th March.

The risk is that hackers could deliberately construct a malformed PDF file that would trigger the vulnerability, allowing them to open a backdoor and run malicious code on your computer. This would mean that criminals could, for instance, spam out a PDF file that would infect your PC, or plant malicious PDF content on a website.

As PDF files are so widely used on the internet, and regularly exchanged to share information, there is an obvious concern that hackers may be quick to take advantage of this vulnerability.

Sophos is investigating the vulnerability…

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.