Adobe Warns Of Zero-Day Attacks

Adobe on Monday warned that an unpatched “critical” flaw in some Flash software has been used in “targeted attacks”, but said a fix will not arrive until next week.

“There are reports that this vulnerability is being exploited in the wild in targeted attacks via a Flash (.swf) file embedded in a Microsoft Excel (.xls) file delivered as an email attachment,” Adobe said in a security advisory.

Attackers could take over a system

The vulnerability affects Adobe Flash Player 10.2.152.33 and earlier versions (Adobe Flash Player 10.2.154.18 and earlier for Chrome users) for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris operating systems, Adobe Flash Player 10.1.106.16 and earlier versions for Android, and the Authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat X (10.0.1) and earlier 10.x and 9.x versions of Reader and Acrobat for Windows and Macintosh operating systems, according to the company.

“This vulnerability could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system,” Adobe stated.

The company said it was not aware of attacks targeting Reader or Acrobat.

Adobe noted that the Protected Mode setting of Adobe Reader X would prevent an exploit of this kind from executing, meaning a fix is a lower priority for this software. Adobe said it is planning to issue a fix for Adobe Reader X for Windows with the next quarterly Adobe Reader update, currently scheduled for 14 June.

Adobe Reader 9.x for UNIX, Adobe Reader for Android, and Adobe Reader and Acrobat 8.x are not affected by the bug, Adobe said.

A fix is planned for sometime during the week of 21 March.

Security organisation the SANS Institute said the attacks targeting this flaw “seem to be particularly sneaky”.

“The Flash exploit is embedded in an Excel file which is also used to setup memory so the exploit has a higher chance of succeeding,” wrote SANS handler Bojan Zdrnja in an advisory.