Tags: Adobe, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, Microsoft Windows, Mozilla Firefox, PDF, QuickTime, Windows XP

Adobe PDF file format has a major security vulnerability

The security expert who recently discovered a flaw in the QuickTime plug-in for the Firefox web browser is now back with the discovery of a major bug in the Adobe’s PDF format.

Petko Petkov claims that the PDF file format can be manipulated to compromise Windows powered machines.

He added in a blog post: “Adobe Acrobat/Reader PDF documents can be used to compromise your Windows box. Completely!!! Invisibly and unwillingly!!! All it takes is to open a PDF document or stumble across a page which embeds one.”

He has replicated the problem using Adobe Reader 8.1 on Windows XP. He believes that other versions of the application might be affected by this bug as well.

Security experts believe that this could become a major security problem for corporates as they are heavy user of the PDF file format.