Top Choices for November 2009...   VIPRE Antispyware+Antivirus — 15 day free trial   Sunbelt Personal Firewall — 30 day free trial   NetZero Dialup — Free 10 hrs /month   Web Hosting from $4.95/month   Windows XP System Repairs — Online Service

Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat Security Alert

US-CERT, the computer emergency response team that is now part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, on February 20, 2009, released a Cyber Security Alert warning about Adobe Reader versions 9 and earlier and Adobe Acrobat (Professional and Standard) versions 9 and earlier.

According to the US-CERT release, the issue is that JavaScrpt, as implemented in these Adobe products, is vulnerable and can be used by the bad guys to take control of your computer.

For now, the fix recommended by US-CERT is to turn off JavaScript in Adobe Reader's and Adobe Acrobat's Preferences and to turn off the ability to view PDF documents in your web browser, which is also in the same Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat Preferences dialog box.

The Preferences tab can be found on the menu bar at Edit > Preferences.

US-CERT also announced that Adobe released Security Bulletin APSB09-01 addressing this problem. Interestingly, Adobe's release says nothing about disabling JavaScript or preventing your web browser from opening PDF files. It recommends that you keep your antivirus signatures up to date and do not open PDF files from untrusted sources.

Adobe's security bulletin can be found at http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa09-01.html. It also states that there are reports that the issue is currently being exploited and that Adobe expects to have updates by March 11, 2009.

Copyright © 2009 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.