All users are advised to install the latest version to prevent unfortunate incidents

Dec 10, 2011 10:46 GMT  ·  By

The latest variant of the popular PDF reader application comes with a fix for a highly critical security flaw that could allow a remote attacker to compromise a system running a vulnerable version.

According to an advisory from Foxit, Foxit Reader 5.1.3 resolves an issue caused by “a cross-border assignment of an array which may result in memory corruption vulnerabilities or potential memory corruption vulnerabilities.”

More precisely, for the weakness to be taken advantage of, the cybercriminal would have to perform some social engineering to fool the user into opening a maliciously crafted PDF file.

Since all the versions prior to 5.1.0 were affected by the problem, Foxit Reader customers are advised to immediately update their software to the latest variant. More than 100 million individuals rely on the application, which means that such a vulnerability could be very profitable for hackers and their malevolent operations.

Foxit Reader 5.1.3 for Windows is available for download here.