LOS ANGELES — Adobe has issued a warning about a critical vulnerability in the current versions of some of its most popular software products; the latest in a series of similar warnings to affect the software giant.
According to the company, the affected programs are Flash Player (v9.0.159.0 and v10.0.22.87) for Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems, and the authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat v9.x for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX operating systems.
“This vulnerability (CVE-2009-1862) could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system,” stated a company release. “There are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild via limited, targeted attacks against Adobe Reader v9 on Windows.”
Adobe is in the process of developing a fix and expects to provide an update for Flash Player before July 30 and an update for Adobe Reader and Acrobat by July 31.
“Deleting, renaming, or removing access to the authplay.dll file that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat v9.x mitigates the threat for those products, but users will experience a non-exploitable crash or error message when opening a PDF that contains SWF content,” Adobe advises.
According to the company, the authplay.dll that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x for Windows is typically located at C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\authplay.dll or C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0]\Acrobat\authplay.dll.
“Windows Vista users should consider enabling UAC (User Access Control) to mitigate the impact of a potential exploit. Flash Player users should exercise caution in browsing untrusted websites,” Adobe further cautioned, adding that “Adobe is in contact with Antivirus and Security vendors regarding the issue and recommend users keep their anti-virus definitions up to date.”
John Bambenek of US-CERT’s SANS Internet Storm Center says that the vulnerability is currently being exploited by malicious sites as well as via link injection into legitimate websites as part of a drive-by attack.
US-CERT is advising Windows users to disable Flash in Adobe Reader 9 and to disable the Flash Player — a move which would render most tube sites unusable to their visitors and brings with it broader implications for the online adult community and consumer’s access to our wares.
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