Software vendor
Adobe says it is investigating claims that instructions for exploiting a previously unknown critical security hole in the latest versions of its widely-used PDF Reader software are being sold in the cybercriminal underground.
The finding comes from malware analysts at Moscow-based forensics firm
Group-IB, who say they’ve discovered that a new exploit capable of compromising the security of computers running
Adobe X and
XI (Adobe Reader 10 and 11) is being sold in the underground for up to $50,000. This is significant because — beginning with
Reader X– Adobe
introduced a “sandbox” feature aimed at blocking the exploitation of previously unidentified security holes in its software, and so far that protection has held its ground.
But according to
Andrey Komarov, Group-IB’s head of international projects, this vulnerability allows attackers to sidestep Reader’s sandbox protection. Komarov said the finding is significant because “in the past there was no documented method of how to bypass” Adobe Reader X’s sandbox to run code of the attacker’s choice on the target’s computer. The Russian firm produced the following video which they say demonstrates a sanitized version of the attack.
