Fergie's Tech Blog

Acrobat Reader Security Risk Greater Than Originally Thought

Joris Evers writes on C|Net News:

A recently discovered security weakness in the widely used Acrobat Reader software could put Net users at more risk than previously thought, experts warned Thursday.

Initially, security professionals thought that the problem was restricted and exposed only Web-related data or could support phishing scams. Now it has been discovered that miscreants could exploit the problem to access all information on a victim's hard disk drive, said Web security specialists at WhiteHat Security and SPI Dynamics.

Key to increased access is where hostile links point. When the issue was first discovered, experts warned of links with malicious JavaScript to PDF files hosted on Web sites. While risky, this actually limits the attacker's access to a PC. It has now been discovered that those limits can be removed by directing a malicious link to a PDF file on a victim's PC.

posted by Fergie @ 1/04/2007 07:44:00 PM