Posted on 04/07/2010 12:37:04 PM PDT by Wooly
On the heels of a warning that malicious executables can be embedded into PDF files and launched with minimal user interaction, Adobe is suggesting that users configure its PDF Reader product to limit the damage from an attack. Here are the instructions for mitigating a potential attack:
Users can also turn off this functionality in the Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat Preferences by selecting > Edit > Preferences > Categories > Trust Manager > PDF File Attachments and clearing (unchecking) the box “Allow opening of non-PDF file attachments with external applications” This is what it looks like:
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.zdnet.com ...
Thank you for the info. Now if only pdf files would open like they used to before Win7.
Thanks for the tip.
I hate the complexity that advanced .pdf documents have added.
It is the old Microsoft “extend” trick, since everyone has adopted the .pdf as the standard print output.
Bloat is the result and unnecessary complexity.
Run Foxit instead. A 10 second update. Infinitely better, faster, and more versatile than Acrocrap.
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/
mark for home laptop
thanks guys!
I like Foxit too, Adobe is too invasive.
Wouldn’t virus scanners catch these embedded viruses?
This sure seems like the place to ask the following question:
Today I received an email from Adobe with a heading that says, “In the future, you log in for Adobe will be your email address.” Frankly, I never email Adobe, and I wondered if this was a hack, so I deleted it.
Can anybody clear this up for me?
From the article:
The alternative FoxIt Reader, which is also vulnerable, has issued a patch to ensure there is user-action required for a successful attack but malicious hackers could still use clever social engineering techniques to launch executables from rigged PDF files.
Foxit is much better. Just as versatile and far smaller in computer overhead. I deleted Adobe reader two years ago.
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