Flaw reported in Adobe Acrobat Reader

Flaw reported in Adobe Acrobat Reader

Just days after Microsoft reported a severely critical flaw in their Internet Explorer software; it is the turn of Adobe now to report one of their own. The latest news in is that the popular document application Adobe Acrobat Reader has a security glitch which can be exploited to seize control of a computer system. The company has issued a warning on their website and has specified that the bug exists in the Adobe Reader versions 5.0.9, 5.0.10 written specifically for Unix OS.

This exploit can be misused by e-mailing maliciously written PDF files to unsuspecting users who can get infected by it leading to an unsecured Operating System. The company has also posted a fix on their website for free download. Adobe has also clarified that they are yet to receive any intimation on any infection resulting from this flaw.

The flaw was first discovered by the security firm IDefense which said: “Remote exploitation of a buffer overflow in Adobe Acrobat Reader for Unix could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code.” PDF file format is widely used as a platform-independent file format, and unlike Microsoft Office document formats, has full support on Unix and Linux.