pdf as a vehicle for malware

Dear Group,

As a frequent user and downloader of pdf documents I am
concerned about the report at
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2092880,00.asp
which alleges that pdf documents can be used to deposit
malware on a PC.

You will find that Acrobat reader 8 is considered safe, but
Acrobat 7 is not.

Adobe however is still offering updates to Acrobat 7 which
are just as big in Bytes as a download of Acrobat 8.

Does anybody have any information on this subject? Is this a
serious problem?

Thank you for any contribution

GR.

Re: pdf as a vehicle for malware

NoSpam wrote:


> You will find that Acrobat reader 8 is considered safe, but
> Acrobat 7 is not.


You will find that xpdf in any version is safe, so is Foxit PDF Reader.

> Adobe however is still offering updates to Acrobat 7 which
> are just as big in Bytes as a download of Acrobat 8.
>
> Does anybody have any information on this subject? Is this a
> serious problem?


Well, if you're using Adobe Reader and you're not turning off JavaScript and
a lot of other non standard conforming stuff, then you sure deserve to get
the malware installed, since you're explicitly offering full access.

Some people would suggest that using less broken implementations might
making such mistakes way harder...