Adobe Zero-day Vulnerability Reader for Windows has been Exploited in the Wild

Adobe has notified its customers of a critical zero-day vulnerability actively exploited in the wild that affects its ubiquitous Adobe Acrobat PDF reader software.

According to Adobe, the zero-day vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-28550, “has been exploited in the wild in limited attacks targeting Adobe Reader users on Windows.”

“Adobe has released security updates for Adobe Acrobat and Reader for Windows and macOS. These updates address multiple critical and important vulnerabilities. Successful exploitation could lead to arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user”, reads the advisory published by Adobe.

Affected Versions

The vulnerability affects eight versions of the software, including those running on Windows and macOS systems. Such versions include:

• Windows Acrobat DC & Reader DC (versions 2021.001.20150 and earlier)
• macOS Acrobat DC & Reader DC (versions 2021.001.20149 and earlier)
• Windows & macOS Acrobat 2020 & Acrobat Reader 2020 (2020.001.30020 and earlier versions)
• Windows & macOS Acrobat 2017 & Acrobat Reader 2017 (2017.011.30194  and earlier versions)

The software giant addressed 11 security vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat and Reader for Windows and MacOS platforms.

“Users can update their product installations manually by choosing Help > Check for Updates,” Adobe wrote in its security bulletin.

List of Vulnerabilities in Acrobat and Reader

The company also addressed three critical Out-of-bounds write issues in InDesign (CVE-2021-21098, CVE-2021-21099, CVE-2021-21043) that could lead to arbitrary code execution.

Adobe Recommends Users Update Their Software Installations to the Latest Versions:

The latest product versions are available to end-users via one of the following methods:    

• Users can update their product installations manually by choosing Help > Check for Updates.
• The products will update automatically, without requiring user intervention, when updates are detected.
• The full Acrobat Reader installer can be downloaded from the Acrobat Reader Download Center.

For IT administrators (managed environments):     

• Refer to the specific release note version for links to installers.

Install updates via your preferred methodologies, such as AIP-GPO, bootstrapper, SCUP/SCCM (Windows), or on macOS, Apple Remote Desktop and SSH.