Reported increase in PDF-based malware

PC Tools is reporting an increase in PDF-based malware, some of which can evade antivirus software.
According to a PC Tools blog posting, the security vendor's user community is seeing a slew of rigged PDF files attacking various buffer overflow vulnerabilities in the Adobe Acrobat Reader software. The PDF malware attacks target the newest publicly known Adobe Acrobat Reader vulnerability. Adobe issued a patch last week.
On some occasions users are duped into downloading malicious files that appear to be Microsoft software updates. More often, users appear to be downloading silent malicious installers.
Worryingly, two of the downloaded, packed files behave in a way that evades antivirus file scanning.
The PC Tools blog posting says: "A chunk of the standard download and execute shellcode that we are currently seeing pulls a file from hxxp://ascoprguide. net/lel / load.php?xpl=pdf, renames it as c:\\U.exe, and runs it on the victim's system. This "U.exe" then runs and installs other adware and spyware related components."


PDF Malware Hits Acrobat Reader Flaw - Business Center - PC World

I stopped using Adobe a long time ago instead I use Foxit which has a much smaller footprint, don't need all the bloat that goes with Adobe

Joan Archer said:

I stopped using Adobe a long time ago instead I use Foxit which has a much smaller footprint, don't need all the bloat that goes with Adobe

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Joan, the problem is not Adobes. Foxit will read PDF's. The reported malware is in the PDF. It used to be PDF's were a secure form of document. You need to ensure that you Antivrus Program scans PDF's now.