Malware Affects Adobe Reader What Should I Do??

I have Adobe Reader X but my Avast popped up and alerted me saying Adobe Reader 11 and earlier versions are getting affected by zero day malware. If I don't open up Adobe Reader PDF should I be safe? Or what should I do?

 

Please see this post for instructions. The full thread is here

 

I don't want to get off-topic here, but you might consider removing Adobe Reader & replacing it with an alternative freeware reader or just use online PDF readers. There are Firefox extensions that enable online reading & Chrome has one built-in I believe. I moved to an alternative freeware PDF reader years ago.

 

You are not getting off-topic - you are right on topic. Adobe Reader is crappy Adobe application - so big, so resource hungry - as are all other Adobe apps. And even worse - they are very big security whole - which consists of many exploits (tons of known and who knows how many unknown yet to be published and discovered). If you keep it, half of your computer time should be protecting it and updating it.

So ANY home users and small business shoud strongly consider ditching all Adobe reader software and change it to better alternatives such as the the Microsoft Windows 8 built-in PDF reader, the Sumatra PDF, Foxit Reader. They are so small and effective, well written and not (often) exploitable on daily basis.

 

IMO:

Foxit Reader is as exploitable as Adobe Reader, if not more.

I don't know too much about PDF-XChange, but I would risk saying it's in the same condition of Foxit Reader, regarding the security of its code. I may be totally wrong regarding this one.

Sumatra PDF lacks several features but has its vulnerabilities as well in that considerably smaller attack surface.

Windows 8 native Metro-based PDF Reader as well as Chrome built-in PDF Reader seem to take security as a number one priority and are far more secure than the others AFAIK.

Using extensions such as this one for Opera and this one for Firefox to read PDFs online seem fairly secure as long as the extensions and the web services are trusted.

Now, because all these alternatives have far less users than Adobe Reader, anyone using any of them instead of Adobe Reader is probably less likely to be exploited in common attack scenarios.

 

According to Tracker Software Products own site ~

'The No.1 rated BEST PDF Reader - as voted by Life Hacker Readers by a 2-1 margin for the 2nd year in a row!'

So Life Hacker readers seem to have faith in it.

I'm assuming that PDF-XC is as secure as any of the others if not better. Either way, as it is not bundled with MS as Adobe usually is, I would assume less people actually use it & thus it is less of a target for hackers/malware writers.

It is a far better reader than Adobe's in my opinion as well. Plus it has won a few awards.

I use PDF-XC quite often. I would never go back to Adobe's reader.

 

Yeah, I worry about Adobe's products. I remember the two things that used to slow my notebook to a crawl were IE 7 & then trying to open Adobe's reader in it. I learned that there were alternatives very quickly.

 

Speaking about personal preferences, I use Sumatra PDF and browser extensions such as the mentioned one for Opera. I must admit that I don't need anything advanced from PDF Readers.

I've read something about PDF-XChange being considered the choice of professionals and offering the best quality and more features or something like that. But I remember seeing some critical Secunia advisories for it too (http://secunia.com/advisories/product/18144/?task=advisories). When I tried it a really long time ago (several years ago) I reckon being impressed by its performance but a bit frustrated with the "PRO feature" warnings.

Anyways, any of these trusted alternatives seem better than Adobe Reader at the moment.

 

It (PDF-XC) is patched relatively often & the most recent (a few days ago) probably fixed those.

 

In the past i used Foxit Reader, but they had also security holes recently and I have to say that the new version of Adobe Reader isn't "feeling" like the usual bloatware for me on my SSD!? - It is starting very fast (don't know if they run it in the background) and I have no complaints besides all those security updates and warnings of course. - I stay with Adobe Reader for now. (Hoping that EMET would stop exploiting it!) - But I don't open many PDF's and those I do are always harmless anyway.

Not having an active infection for many, many years I think a lot of paranoia is going on. - But since we like that paranoia here all is as it should be!