Adobe Patches Code Execution, Other Flaws in Acrobat and Reader
20.9.2018 securityweek Vulnerebility

Updates released on Wednesday by Adobe for the Windows and macOS versions of Acrobat and Reader address a total of 7 vulnerabilities, including a critical flaw that can allow arbitrary code execution.

The security holes affect Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader DC (continuous track) 2018.011.20058 and earlier versions; Acrobat 2017 and Acrobat Reader 2017 (classic 2017 track) 2017.011.30099 and earlier versions; and Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader DC (classic 2015 track) 2015.006.30448 and earlier versions.

The most serious of the flaws, tracked as CVE-2018-12848 and classified as “critical,” is an out-of-bounds write issue that allows arbitrary code execution. This was one of the four vulnerabilities reported to Adobe by Omri Herscovici, research team leader at Check Point Software Technologies.

The other bugs have been described by Adobe as out-of-bounds read issues that can lead to information disclosure. These have been assigned an “important” severity rating.

Cyberllum Technologies reported one of the flaws and an anonymous researcher informed Adobe of two flaws via Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative (ZDI).

Adobe is not aware of any malicious exploitation and, based on the priority rating assigned to the patches, it does not expect to see exploits any time soon.

The Acrobat and Reader patches come just one week after Adobe released its regular Patch Tuesday updates for September 2018, which resolved 10 vulnerabilities in Flash Player and ColdFusion.

Adobe also released an update for Photoshop CC recently to patch two critical remote code execution vulnerabilities.