Adobe preparing critical out-of-cycle fix for Acrobat and Reader

Stephen Withers
Friday, 06 August 2010 07:56

Business IT - Security

Adobe is scrambling to patch Acrobat and Reader after a critical security vulnerability was disclosed last week.

During a presentation at last week's Black Hat conference, well-known security researcher Charlie Miller revealed a flaw in the way Adobe Acrobat and Reader handle fonts.

While Miller did not show how the vulnerability can be exploited, the problem involves the way TrueType fonts are handled by the PDF applications.

Rather than waiting for the next quarterly update, Adobe plans to release out-of-cycle updates for the Windows, Mac and Unix versions of Reader and for the Windows and Mac versions of Acrobat during the week beginning August 16.

Other and as yet undisclosed issues will be addressed in the update, according to Adobe officials.

Both the 9.3.3 and 8.2.3 versions will be updated, and a quarterly update is still scheduled for October 12.