Despite the best efforts of antivirus vendors and developers, security vulnerabilities continue to be exposed in software programs, whether they are relatively new or long-established. For example, just last month Microsoft warned of a potential vulnerability in a developer component for Windows XP, which debuted back in 2001.
Part of the reason is popularity. The more successful a program is, the more likely it’s going to become the target of criminals hoping to exploit any weaknesses they can find. As eSecurity Planet reports, researchers at security firm Secunia have just discovered a vulnerability in Adobe Reader, which the software maker is scrambling to fix.
Adobe Systems this week sent out a security advisory to let enterprise customers know that it
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s working feverishly to deliver an out-of-band patch for a PDF vulnerability in its Acrobat Reader software.
According to a blog post by researchers at security software vendor Secunia, the vulnerability can give hackers the ability to “take control of a vulnerable system and install or execute other malicious code.”