PDF trojan exploits Adobe flaw

Reader/Acrobat vulnerability targeted day after patch release.

A vulnerability in Adobe's popular PDF-viewing software Adobe Reader and editing suite Acrobat, first reported a month ago, was patched on Monday in an update released two weeks after the company issued a workaround to minimise exposure. The following day, PDFs containing exploits for the vulnerability were seen being spammed out in targeted attacks on businesses.

The spams contain PDF documents posing as bills or invoices, and once run, the trojan code (dubbed 'Trojan.Pidief.A' by Symantec and 'EXPL_Pidief.B' by Trend Micro) accesses vulnerable systems, disables the Windows firewall and downloads further trojans to complete the system penetration.

The vulnerability is thought only to affect users of Windows XP and Internet Explorer 7. Readers are advised to apply the update, available from Adobe here, and ensure all software including anti-virus is kept fully up to date and patched. More details on the attack are on the Symantec blog here.

24 October 2007

Tags: adobe, exploit, patch, pdf, trojan, vulnerability. del.icio.us digg this