Adobe Moving Too Fast?

We have to admit, this is one of those “golden moments” for adobe as they slowly become the household name even just for developers. With the string of releases and updates in their developmental framework and tool kits, it’s unmistakable that Adobe poses a serious challenge to Microsoft’s own version of developmental tools.

The battle may not have ended but Adobe is putting a very good fight in their quest to win the hearts of developers. But there’s recent news that Adobe is moving too fast. With all the recent releases of this software, they might have opened a whole new gate for malware creators and hackers.

The worst part is; it’s not only the frameworks but even the standard products adobe has created for its loyal users. What are we talking about? Adobe’s PDF reader. There was a report that a British researcher showed how vulnerable the latest version of Adobe’s PDF reader, Acrobat.

Using Acrobat, hackers can now access anyone’s computer if they downloaded the latest version of Acrobat. If a user downloads a PDF file from the hackers and reads it using the latest Acrobat, hackers will now be able to read other documents, launch a malicious code to destroy all the files or get all the personal information they need.

Adobe was able to release a patch before the malicious practice takes place. But that’s not all, Adobe’s AIR, which uses HTML, AJX and XML efficiently and run to the system in other computers is also vulnerable to targets. 

Adobe’s AIR is one of the Ajax based products that could create programs that are not only web-based but could also run offline. All the users need to do is to download AIR in their computers and the program. The result is a beautiful user interface, user friendly and seemed to be really working really fast even with a slow internet connection.

It doesn’t need any browser to run these softwares. That seemed to be no problem at all if you take a look at the program but underneath it is a malicious attack lurking in one part of the program.

AIR has become a gateway for bad codes and malicious wares. All you need to do is download the program, run AIR and the software. With the cool things Adobe AIR-based programs has to offer, it’s hard to ignore them. For a simple user, it’s just another program but for the hacker it’s a perfect tool.

Even more bad news is that our present anti-spyware is not equipped to monitor these things. Spywares could monitor the exchange of information such as request response. However, since the programs are Asynchronous or there’s only one flow of information, spywares may not be able to detect these things. If Adobe is moving fast, it should be high time for the company to create their own anti-spyware tool. It could mean lots of time lost in developing other tools, but they have to think of security first and foremost.