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Adobe warns of flaw in Acrobat PDF Reader

Internet users of Adobe's Acrobat PDF Reader programme have been advised to switch to an alternate version or they risk having their internet security compromised by a flaw in the system.

The warning has been issued by Adobe's internet security response team, which said that a serious flaw exists in all versions of the programme including Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1, 8.1.4 among others.

In an advisory, the firm stated that plans are underway to issue updates for all versions affected by the vulnerability, which will include patches for Windows, Macintosh and Unix.

"We are currently not aware of any reports of exploits in the wild for this issue," added the statement, which also recommended disabling JavaScript in Adobe Reader and Acrobat "to mitigate the issue".

According to online security firm F-Secure, the flaw could be exploited by hackers to commandeer a computer remotely.

"Use an alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader," said F-Secure's Patrik Runald. "We won't recommend any reader over another as it would be better if people use a wide variety of them."

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