Not Using Adobe PDF Reader...

You may have noticed the number of vulnerabilities that Adobe's software appears to be suffering from these days. Not least of which is the Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader.

There appears to be two 'veins' of problems with this particular reader, the Adobe software itself seems to be suffering with vulnerability bugs (you may have noticed from the number of CERT advisories etc) and, in addition, the reader has daft features that are 'ON' by default such as support for Java and for running external code within the browser. This makes your workstation vulnerable to carefully crafted malicious PDF documents! Who would expect a PDF doc to be dangerous, they are, if you are running Adobe PDF Reader.

Personally I would recommend (and this has been implemented at L3n), that an alternative PDF reader be used.

Here at L3n, we are using Foxit which certainly appears to be less vulnerable to software bugs and does not have Java support in it - find Foxit here - http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/

Of course, if you are running a Linux workstation (like me) then you have OpenSource support for reading PDF files and so I only need Foxit when I run Windows.

If you HAVE to run Adobe's PDF Reader then make sure all users have turned OFF Java and external app support in the preferences.

As always give us a call here at L3n, if you have problems or concerns regarding your network safety and security.

Simon