Adobe Reader and Acrobat vulnerable to attack — what to do now

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Adobe Reader and Acrobat vulnerable to attack — what to exercise now

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If you utilise Adobe Acrobat Reader to read PDFs, or Adobe Acrobat to create them, then information technology's time to update. Adobe yesterday (Nov. iii) released new versions of both, for Mac and PC akin, to gear up several astringent security flaws.

There are 14 vulnerabilities in all, Adobe wrote in its security bulletin, ranging in severity from "Critical" to "Of import." The three in the one-time category all allow arbitrary code execution — i.e. a rogue PDF can utilise the flaws to hack your PC or Mac.

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Other flaws permit information disclosure (access to private data such as passwords) and local privilege escalation (the PDF gets authoritative powers on the machine).

The affected programs are the Mac and Windows versions of Acrobat DC, Acrobat 2020, Acrobat 2017, Acrobat Reader DC, Acrobat Reader 2020 and Acrobat Reader 2017. ("DC" stands for "Document Cloud"; it's the 2015 version merely gets new features the others don't.)

How to update Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat Reader

To manually update any one of these programs, open the program, click Assist in the upper left corner and gyre to and select Cheque for Updates. An updater window will pop open, bank check for updates and prompt you to download and install whatever is bachelor. You lot'll have to close your Reader program while the updater works.

You can also but leave the program open and it should eventually notice that an update is gear up for download and installation. Or you can start all over again with a new copy of Reader DC from https://get2.adobe.com/reader/. (Just be sure to uncheck the unwanted-programme options before you start the download.)

The vulnerable version numbers are 2020.012.20048 and earlier for Acrobat and Reader DC; 2020.001.30005 and earlier for Acrobat and Reader 2020; and 2017.011.30175 and earlier for Acrobat and Reader 2017.

Nosotros ran the update for Acrobat Reader DC for Windows and ended upward with version twenty.012.20064.

To be honest, you don't need the complimentary Adobe Acrobat Reader to view PDFs. Any modern desktop web browser volition do.

Nor do you need the paid Adobe Acrobat to create or edit PDFs. Because Adobe released the Portable Document Format to the public domain in 2008, the format is now an open up standard. We've got a list of the best PDF editors too as the all-time costless PDF editors.

Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom's Guide focused on security and privacy. He has also been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-booty commuter, code monkey and video editor. He'due south been rooting effectually in the information-security infinite for more than than 15 years at FoxNews.com, SecurityNewsDaily, TechNewsDaily and Tom's Guide, has presented talks at the ShmooCon, DerbyCon and BSides Las Vegas hacker conferences, shown up in random Idiot box news spots and even moderated a panel give-and-take at the CEDIA home-technology conference. You lot tin follow his rants on Twitter at @snd_wagenseil.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/acrobat-reader-patches-nov20

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