Adobe Warns Users About Acrobat, Acrobat Reader Vulnerability

Adobe has alerted its users of hacking attacks exploiting a zero-day security hole in Adobe Reader as well as Adobe Acrobat 9.1.3 on all popular operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS X, and Unix.

The software company announced in a blog post that it will issue a security patch for the critical vulnerabilities, on Tuesday October 13, same day when Microsoft will roll out its traditional Patch Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the company is recommending the users to disable JavaScript, although it cautioned that this couldn’t be the full-fledged solution to the reported technical glitch.

Discussing the same, the software maker quoted in the blog post: “Adobe plans to resolve this issue as part of the upcoming Adobe Reader and Acrobat quarterly security update scheduled for release on October 13”.

However, it further asserted that Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1.3 users with DEP enabled on their Windows Vista systems would be immune against this exploit.

The company also said that it is in touch with antivirus software vendors in order to mitigate this particular exploit, and directed users to keep their antivirus applications up-to-date.

Incidentally, Adobe’s formats are increasingly becoming targets for hacking attacks of late, with vulnerabilities surrounding its Reader and Flash applications emerged more often in the recent past.

Kevin Lynch, chief technology officer at Adobe, said in a statement: “We have seen an increase in attacks on Reader and Flash. We have an excellent security team working on the issue, and also have a response team to start work immediately on problems as they come in”.