Critical: acroread security and bug fix update

Synopsis

Critical: acroread security and bug fix update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory: Critical

Topic

Updated acroread packages that fix multiple security issues and three bugs
are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Supplementary.

This update has been rated as having critical security impact by the Red
Hat Security Response Team.

Description

Adobe Reader allows users to view and print documents in Portable Document
Format (PDF).

This update fixes several vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader. These
vulnerabilities are summarized on the Adobe Security Advisory APSB10-02
page listed in the References section. A specially-crafted PDF file could
cause Adobe Reader to crash or, potentially, execute arbitrary code as the
user running Adobe Reader when opened. (CVE-2009-4324, CVE-2009-3953,
CVE-2009-3954, CVE-2009-3955, CVE-2009-3959, CVE-2009-3956)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• the acroread process continued to run even after closing a PDF file. If
  multiple PDF files were opened and then closed, the acroread processes
  continued to run and consume system resources (up to 100% CPU usage). With
  this update, the acroread process correctly exits, which resolves this
  issue. (BZ#473217)
  
• the PPKLite.api plug-in was missing, causing Adobe Reader to crash when
  attempting to open signed PDF files. For such files, if an immediate crash
  was not observed, clicking on the Signature Panel could trigger one. With
  this update, the PPKLite.api plug-in is included, which resolves this
  issue. (BZ#472975)
  
• Adobe Reader has been upgraded to version 9.3. (BZ#497957)
  

Adobe have discontinued support for Adobe Reader 8 for Linux. All users of
Adobe Reader are advised to install these updated packages, which contain
Adobe Reader version 9.3, which is not vulnerable to these issues and fixes
these bugs. All running instances of Adobe Reader must be restarted for the
update to take effect.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released
errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use
the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support 5.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support 5.4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 472975 - acroread missing PPKLite.api and crashes on signed PDFs
• BZ - 473217 - acroread takes 100% cpu and does not die when killed
• BZ - 547799 - CVE-2009-4324 acroread: media.newplayer JavaScript API code execution vulnerability (APSB10-02)
• BZ - 554293 - CVE-2009-3953 CVE-2009-3954 CVE-2009-3955 CVE-2009-3959 acroread: multiple code execution flaws (APSB10-02)
• BZ - 554296 - CVE-2009-3956 acroread: script injection vulnerability (APSB10-02)

CVEs

• CVE-2009-3959
• CVE-2009-3953
• CVE-2009-3955
• CVE-2009-3954
• CVE-2009-3956
• CVE-2009-4324

References

• http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#critical
• http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb10-02.html