How to Patch the Adobe Acrobat Security Flaw

Adobe Acrobat Reader is a program developed by Adobe Systems that use the Portable Document Format, or PDF, as its primary file format. Adobe Reader is available for download free of charge from here. PDF files are used primarily as a means for presenting information in a fixed layout. The Reader allows users to view and print these PDF files.

A security flaw has been recently detected on the Adobe Acrobat Reader product. This flaw is known as a cross-site scripting susceptibility that allows a link to a PDF to be blended with a malicious javascript file with the intent to hack a computer. Spammers have been known to use this technique to send a special link that would infect the oblivious recipient's computer. This security flaw affects Adobe Acrobat Reader in addition to Adobe Standard, Professional and Elements in version 7.0.8. It is important to note that this security breach does not affect specific PDF documents, but the way those documents are linked to and received from the Internet.

It is very easy to fix this security flaw in Adobe Acrobat Reader. All you have to do is update to Adobe Reader 8.0. If you cannot upgrade from version 8.0 because of hardware or operating system limitations, you may opt to upgrade to version 7.0.9 instead, as this flaw only applies to Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0.8. If you are a website operator or webmaster, Adobe has released an alternate solution to prevent the cross-site scripting vulnerability. The Security Advisory addressing this issue on Adobe Acrobat can be found here.

If you prefer to stray away from Adobe Acrobat completely, you can choose to switch to Foxit. It seems as if Adobe Acrobat the only software that is capable of reading and writing PDF files. However, there has been a recent uprising of other developers creating software capable of handling PDF files. One of the most popular is Foxit.

Foxit software has released a retail version of a PDF creator as well as a free PDF reader. Foxit PDF Creator currently sells for $35 (compared to Adobe Acrobat's price of $200). The Foxit PDF Creator is a cheaper alternative to Adobe's product with no known security vulnerabilities. Foxit also has a free PDF reader similar to Adobe Acrobat Reader. This PDF reader has all the features needed to open, view, and print PDF files and can be downloaded from here.