Zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Reader

Security bypass
CVE-2014-0546

The vulnerability was discovered by Costin Raiu and Vitaly Kamluk of Kaspersky Labs.

Exploited by Animal Farm group.

Vulnerability details

Advisory: SB2014081201 - Remote code execution in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader

Vulnerable component: Adobe Reader

CVE-ID: CVE-2014-0546

CVSSv3 score: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:H/RL:O/RC:C

CWE-ID: CWE-20 - Improper input validation

Description:

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the target system.

The weakness exists due to improper input validation when processing .pdf files. A remote attacker can create a specially crafted file, trick the victim into opening it, bypass sandbox restrictions and execute arbitrary code with privileges of the current user.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerability results in arbitrary code execution on the vulnerable system.

Note: the vulnerability was being actively exploited.

External links:

https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/reader/apsb14-19.html
https://www.symantec.com/security_response/vulnerability.jsp?bid=69193
https://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2014-082218-1438-99
http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/27535/cyber-crime/cve-2014-0546-adobe-flaw.html
http://zerosecurity.org/2014/08/cve-2014-0546-found-utilized-small-targeted-attacks
http://www.securityweek.com/adobe-patches-security-flaw-leveraged-targeted-attacks
https://heatsoftware.com/blog/9286/urgent-adobe-users-told-to-patch-reader-and-acrobat-against-zero-...
http://www.burningflameinteractive.com/aj-burning-flame-blog/adobe-patches-zero-day-vulnerability

About zero-day vulnerabilities

Zero-day vulnerability is an undisclosed vulnerability in software that hackers can exploit to compromise computer programs, gain unauthorized access to sensitive data, penetrate networks, etc. We consider vulnerability a zero-day when there is no solution provided from software vendor and the vulnerability is being actively exploited by malicious actors.

Zero-day candidate is a potential zero-day vulnerability in software which might have been used in targeted attacks, however there is no evidence to support this suggestion.