Patch/Configuration Management, Vulnerability Management

Adobe fixes “critical” bugs in Reader, Acrobat and RoboHelp publishing tool

Adobe has released security updates for its popular Reader and Acrobat products for Windows users.

The fixes, released Tuesday, addressed a “critical” vulnerability, CVE-2013-5325, resolving a “regression” that permitted the launch of javascript scheme uniform resource identifiers (URIs) while users viewed a PDF in their web browser, an Adobe security bulletin said.

With the updates, a critical flaw, CVE-2013-5327, in Adobe publishing tool RoboHelp 10 for Windows users was also addressed. A memory corruption bug that could allow a saboteur to execute malicious code was fixed with the patch.

Paul Ducklin, a security researcher who writes for Sophos' Naked Security blog, said that users worried about implementing the patch due to hackers' theft of Adobe source code should still apply the Reader and Acrobat updates as it's doubtful that software modifications would be able to slip by the company unnoticed.

“My own opinion is that this is highly unlikely, not least because modern software engineering tools make it comparatively easy to track the changes to the source code files in a product between builds,” Ducklin wrote. “Also, remember that this patch deals with fixing a regression – 'repatching' a previous patch – rather than with a shepherding in [of] a huge raft of changes throughout the product.”

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