Adobe recently announced what should be a vast improvement in its popular Adobe Reader. With its next release they will be employing "sandboxing" which effectively puts a shell around the software protecting it from being injected with code from malicious hackers. This move by Adobe has been long overdue seeing as the reader program has been one of the leading vehicles for hackers to inject code that can infect end-users when they happen upon a malicious PDF file.

I have been speaking out about this vulnerability for over a year now and imploring people to use alternatives such as the free Foxit Reader, which also take up miniscule amounts of overhead in comparison to Adobe, but have also had attempts to inject code in it as well.

Now we will have to wait and see how effective this measure is, but it is definitely is a positive step in ...

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Just got done reading this article this morning and it got my attention. PC vulnerabilities are increasing exponentially compared to last year. It is only July and we have gotten to 90% of where we were at this time last year. Which means there will most likely be twice as many as last year. 

Many of these vulnerabilities are coming from third party software vendors. The best way to remediate these vulnerabilities for end users is to head over to Secunia and let them scan your PC. It will look at all available software on your system and provide you with links to make sure you have the latest versions, which can go along way in preventing your PC from being hacked. You can also read their report for yourself. Take the time to patch your system!! If you are not comfortable doing this, by all means, we can help ...

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Adobe has released an official upgrade to its Flash Player. It includes 31 patches. Be sure if prompted to do the upgrade if it is installed on your PC. Also you will have to do this twice if you are using more than one browser. Once for IE and then again for alternative browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Opera.

Here is a link to Adobe's Installation Page

 

From Adobe:

A critical vulnerability exists in Adobe Flash Player 10.0.45.2 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris operating systems, and the authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX operating systems. This vulnerability (CVE-2010-1297) could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. There are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild against both Adobe Flash Player, and Adobe Reader and Acrobat. This advisory will be updated once a schedule has been determined for releasing a fix.

AFFECTED SOFTWARE VERSIONS

Adobe Flash Player 10.0.45.2, 9.0.262, and earlier 10.0.x and 9.0.x versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris
Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.3.2 and earlier 9.x versions for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX

Note ...

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Ok, we have been over this before, yet I will state it again. Adobe PDF reader is unsafe. Perhaps after you read the report that I am posting a link to you will agree. It is reporting that Adobe PDF Reader  accounted for 80% of the exploits the company encountered in 2009! That's a staggering statistic if you ask me. It's a very simple thing to fix to. How do you do that? Get rid of it! I know that sounds absurd, but with other PDF readers available to essentially do the same thing with less hassle, why wouldn't you? My suggestion in the past is use a program such as Foxit Reader. It's free and is not prone to the problems associated with an unsafe program. You can also get a version that will allow you to edit PDF's very simply. Do yourself a ...

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