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Foxit One-Ups Adobe In Blocking PDF Attack Tactics
CWmike writes "Foxit Software, the developer of a rival PDF viewer to Adobe's vulnerability-plagued Reader, released an update on Tuesday that blocks some attacks with a 'safe mode' that's switched on by default. Foxit Reader 3.3 for Windows' 'Trust Manager' blocks all external commands that may be tucked into a PDF document. 'The Foxit Reader 3.3 enables users to allow or deny unauthorized actions and data transmission, including URL connection, attachment PDF actions, and JavaScript functions,' the update's accompanying text explains. Last week, several security companies warned of a major malware campaign that tried to dupe users into opening rigged PDFs that exploited an unpatched design flaw in the PDF format, one attackers could use to infect users of Adobe's and Foxit's software. That flaw in the PDF specification's '/Launch' function was disclosed in late March by Belgium security researcher Didier Stevens, who demonstrated how he could abuse the feature to run malware embedded in a PDF document. He also reported he had figured out how to change Adobe Reader's warning to enhance the scam."
... then surely Adobe can do it. It's probably because Foxit is bigger and able to reassign resources better than Adobe ... oh wait ... how did Foxit beat Adobe on this fix?
Is this really a "feature" that should be celebrated? This should have been implemented since the beginning. If you're making a PDF reader, and the PDF spec has an "execute" functionality, shouldn't everyone developing these programs have seen the spec and realized what this could do?
You mean like they already have?
As an IT admin, I'm not getting anyone to drop PDF as a format. That's insane. But this, along with the 9.2 update installing McAfee without permission, has made me decide my company will be moving to Foxit. Adobe has screwed me for the last time. For anyone's info, if you have Reader 9.0, without the McAfee install selected, and you then do a "Check for updates" update from within the program, McAfee AV will be installed. I now have to UNinstall it from a shit-ton of machines. Adobe is famous for bad installers, but this takes the cake.