Lucian Constantin
CSO Senior Writer

Adobe patches critical flaws in Flash Player, Reader, and Acrobat

news
Jan 10, 20172 mins

The vast majority of the flaws could allow for remote code execution

Adobe Systems released security updates for its Flash Player, Adobe Reader and Acrobat products fixing critical vulnerabilities that could allow attackers to install malware on computers.

The Flash Player update fixes 13 vulnerabilities, 12 that can lead to remote code execution and one that allows attackers to bypass a security restriction and disclose information. Adobe is not aware of any exploit for these flaws existing in the wild.

Users are advised to upgrade to Flash Player version 24.0.0.194 on Windows, Mac and Linux. The Flash Player plug-in bundled with Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer will be automatically upgraded through those browsers’ respective update mechanisms.

The Adobe Reader and Acrobat updates address 29 vulnerabilities, 28 of which can lead to arbitrary code execution. Like with the Flash Player flaws, Adobe is not aware of any of these vulnerabilities being exploited by attackers.

The company advises Acrobat and Reader DC users to upgrade to version 15.023.20053 if they use the “continuous” release track or to version 15.006.30279 if they’re on the “classic” track. Users of the older, but still supported, Acrobat XI and Reader XI should upgrade to version 11.0.19.

Because of their security sandbox which makes exploits significantly harder to implement, Adobe Reader and Acrobat are rarely targeted by hackers today compared to be some years ago.

However, Flash Player remains a hacker favourite, with zero-day attacks against it being relatively common and with exploits being integrated into widely used Web-based attack tools.

Lucian Constantin

Lucian Constantin writes about information security, privacy, and data protection for CSO. Before joining CSO in 2019, Lucian was a freelance writer for VICE Motherboard, Security Boulevard, Forbes, and The New Stack. Earlier in his career, he was an information security correspondent for the IDG News Service and Information security news editor for Softpedia.

Before he became a journalist, Lucian worked as a system and network administrator. He enjoys attending security conferences and delving into interesting research papers. He lives and works in Romania.

You can reach him at lucian_constantin@foundryco.com or @lconstantin on X. For encrypted email, his PGP key's fingerprint is: 7A66 4901 5CDA 844E 8C6D 04D5 2BB4 6332 FC52 6D42

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