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Homemade PDF Patch Beats Adobe By Two Weeks
CWmike writes "Sourcefire security researcher Lurene Grenier has published a home-brewed patch for the critical Adobe Reader vulnerability that hackers are exploiting in the wild using malicious PDF files, beating Adobe Systems Inc. to the punch by more than two weeks. Grenier posted the patch on Sunday with the caveats that it applies only to the Windows version of Adobe Reader 9.0 and comes with no guarantees. Also, PhishLabs has created a batch file that resets a Windows registry key to de-fang the hack by disabling JavaScript in Adobe Reader 9.0, giving administrators a way to automate the process."
When loading a PDF, if Reader sees there's JavaScript that wants to run, Reader pops up a dialog along the lines of, "Hey, this file contains executable code which is, y'know, kind of contrary to the whole concept of a 'document'. Do you want to allow the code to run? [Yes] [[Hell, No]]"
This is the cheesy but mostly effective stopgap solution Microsoft adopted when Word became an infection vector for macro viruses. Unless Microsoft got a patent on it, I don't see any reason why Adobe couldn't also use the same approach.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Seriously, JavaScript? In a PDF file? Why would you do that?
JavaScript in PDFs is, and always has been, a bad idea. I started disabling it years ago when it first showed up, and am continually frustrated that it is present, let alone enabled by default. How many PDF exploits have relied on JavaScript? I haven't been counting, but it sure seems like most of the vulnerabilities are either through JavaScript or made much easier to exploit by its presence.
Someone is doubtless going to say that JavaScript is critical to PDFs as a helper for filling in forms. OK, whatever, but perhaps that particular job isn't one that a PDF should be doing.
PDFs started out as a portable means to deliver any arbitrary document to someone else with fair assurance that it would look pretty much identical to both parties. Now Adobe seems to be trying to turn it in to some kind of interactive content delivery platform (substitute your own buzzwords) or something. That's not a path I'd like to trod.
You skip all testing. Just the sort of thing I want to install in my system.
Your grandchildren are not likely to be browsing Slashdot. Furthermore, taking offense to something that is very clearly tongue-in-cheek is not befitting of someone of your age.
As anyone who has developed complex software with a large installed userbase can attest to, you /cannot/ simply slap together a fix and push it out to millions of people.
Even the simplest one line code change change requires extensive (if targeted) testing when you operate on that scale - the consequences of an "oops" that could result from a hasty fix could easily get far worse than the original issue.
My patch for Adobe is to uninstall reader and use Foxit instead. I thank those on Slashdot who alerted me of its existence as I have longed for a viable alternative from Adobe crapware for ages. It constantly was popping up windows where I would click "don't show me this again" about issues that were relevant to Adobe but not to me, and it never seemed to remember the setting once I checked on it. Worst designed junk I've ever seen. I've since found that Foxit is considerably faster as well.
Good riddance.
Look, I've been a programmer for a lot of years and I'm sick and tired of this sexist crap. I could probably program most slashdot readers under the table, and yet at work I get treated like an idiot. IT articles treat women, especially older ones, like idiots. Enough already. People should be willing to step back and recognize the contributions that women in computer science have made.
F.M.
I'm not sure I understand the overwhelmingly negative reaction to javascript in pdf files.
Please read the 10 immutable laws of security. The one you're looking for is the first one on the list:
"If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it's not your computer anymore."
- the consequences of an "oops" that could result from a hasty fix could easily get far worse than the original issue.
Do you really believe that? I appreciate the need for caution and measured risk taking before releasing new code, but taking _weeks_ to test a reg hack/kill switch just tells me that a company isn't taking their defects very seriously. I'd be much more forgiving of a company that screwed up a patch than one that sat on it until it was too late.
In terms of, as this essay calls it, calmness, I think the most important thing isn't whether there is interactive and moving qualities but whether they exist in such a way that someone who doesn't want to use them doesn't have to and isn't effected. For example, it isn't problematic if a diagram moves to illustrate a point when clicked on, just that it wasn't distracting (or illustrated as best it could with out moving) beforehand. Similarly, it wouldn't be a problem if a quiz in a textbook could check/show answer as long as it didn't do anything obnoxious that bothers a reader who doesn't want to use that feature.
IMHO, of course.
Pardon my ignorance, but exactly what other format should one use if one wants to use forms?
In my place of work, a large group of individuals each needs to fill out an annual form. It contains some short-answer questions, and a few that requires a few paragraphs to answer. In the past, they have used... wait for it... Word. Yes, I was forced to boot up Word once a year, to fill out this form. You should see the completely disastrous document that results.
For that reason, I always wished our administrators would have figured out pdf forms. You don't "edit" them, as you say; you fill them in. While there are many complaints to make about Adobe, I don't see the problem with pdf forms. Am I missing something?
Ada Lovelace, the first programmer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace
"If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it's not your computer anymore."
Is that referring to Bill Gates?