14 DAY TRIAL // The recently reported flaws discovered in Reader and Acrobat tools urged Adobe, the developer of the vulnerable solutions, to release patches in order to protect the customers of the company. If you haven't read the advisories, you should know the holes affected Windows XP users with Internet Explorer 7 installed because the attackers tried to exploit them using malicious PDF files. According to Adobe which confirmed the existence of the flaws, the vulnerabilities affect Adobe Reader 8.1 and earlier, Adobe Reader 7.0.9 and earlier, Adobe Acrobat Professional, 3D and Standard 8.1 and earlier versions, Adobe Acrobat Professional, Standard, 3D and Elements 7.0.9 and earlier.
In order to avoid a successful exploitation of the flaw, you have to update your technologies to version 8.1.1 as Adobe implemented the patches in this latest release.
"Adobe will be providing an update to Adobe Reader 7.0.9 and Acrobat 7.0.9 at a later date. For customers who can not upgrade to Adobe Reader 8.1.1 or Acrobat 8.1.1, administrators can disable the mailto: option in Acrobat, Acrobat 3D and Adobe Reader by modifying the application options in the Windows registry. Additionally, these changes can be added to network deployments to Windows systems," Adobe mentioned in the security bulletin published today.
The PDF files were used by many attackers that tried to exploit more or less critical vulnerabilities discovered in the applications installed on users' computers. However, Adobe has always been a company open to talks and quickly managed to fix them in order to keep the consumers protected.
However, the PDFs were even used for email spamming as a lot of emails containing PDF files attacked users' inboxes from all over the world. That's why you're always advised to avoid opening untrusted or unknown PDF files sent to you, no matter they come as email attachments or sent on instant messengers.