Adobe hurries out PDF app Flash fixes

Ahead of schedule

By John Leyden, 25th June 2010

Regcast training : Hyper-V 3.0, VM high availability and disaster recovery

Adobe has confirmed plans to release critical security updates for Reader and Acrobat next Tuesday.

The cross-platform patches are designed to plug a Flash-related vulnerability that's become the target of hacking attacks since early this month. Adobe fixed the flaw in Flash Player itself on 10 June. Support for Flash in Adobe's Reader and Acrobat packages meant that the PDF applications were also vulnerable to the same sort of attack, which creates a means for hackers to take control of vulnerable systems after tricking surfers into visiting booby-trapped websites.

Tuesday's patches will update Adobe Reader 9.3.2 and Adobe Acrobat for Windows, Mac and Unix. The earlier Reader 8.2.2 and Acrobat 8.2.2 packages will also get patched. Adobe had initially planned to release the updates as part of a scheduled quarterly update, initially pencilled in for 13 July. In the end, however, the company decided to release them two weeks ahead of schedule in order to address a security threat its previous mitigation and workaround advice only partially tackles. ®

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth

COMMENTS

House Rules Send Corrections

All Reader Comments (2)

Highly Rated

Posted Friday 25th June 2010 11:41 GMT

Velv

Fixed the vulernabity earlier this week :)

For the last month, every time I restarted Windows, Adobe Updater would pop up telling me there was an update to install. I clicked the Install button, and off it would merrily go for a couple of minutes, then pop back up telling me it was successful.

Got fed up of this earlier in the week, so uninstalled all Adobe shit. Guess that's the vulnerability removed :)

Posted Friday 25th June 2010 15:29 GMT

David Kelly 2

I don't want FLASH, Java, Javascript, etc.

The original beauty of PDF was that it was relatively simple, rendered beautifully on printer while retaining the ability to browse on computer with search function and table of contents. Beyond that I don't want anything else in my PDFs.

I understand how Adobe's Marketing Department believes they must continue to bloat their product in order to sell "upgrades". But as long as I live in a mostly-free capitalist country I will exercise my right as a consumer to not-consume Adobe's product.