Adobe Systems acknowledges another critical vulnerability in Flash Player, Reader and Acrobat products which exposes its users to malicious attacks from hackers with an intention to steal sensitive data. Adobe is expected to issue an update by 15th November to close this vulnerability.

Tech Soft 3D announced that it has signed an agreement with Adobe Systems, Inc. to develop and distribute Adobe’s 3D SDK and associated technologies. Tech Soft 3D has been a key reseller of Adobe PDF Library SDK since 2005.

QuoVadis announced that its Digital certificates are now automatically trusted in Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe Reader 9 via the Adobe Approved Trust List (AATL).

Adobe announced that it will enable a new regular background service on 13th April to silently distribute and apply PDF updates to the worldwide installation of Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat. The new ‘silent’ service is aimed to keep the copies of its software fully-patched for more number of users.

Adobe has provided a workaround to temporarily address the issue in its Reader and Acrobat software that could allow hackers to spread malicious software through an embedded content in the PDF document.

A security expert created a Proof of Concept (PoC) in which he executed an embedded executable in a test PDF file without exploiting any security vulnerabilities in PDF software. This clever mechanism could allow hackers to execute attacks through embedding rogue executables in a simple PDF files.

Read on as Appligent’s CEO Duff Johnson takes the Adobe Reader “Bloatware Bloviation” to task … “For those who still insist that applications can be measured by the time required for download or size of the installation, tell me how long does it take to deal with a PDF that breaks your preferred “lightweight” viewer? Somehow, that metric never makes it into the lazy claims of ‘bloatware’.”

Adobe has released emergency security updates for Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat to address the critical vulnerability which has been identified in Reader 9.3 for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX, Acrobat 9.3 for Windows and Macintosh, and Reader 8.2 and Acrobat 8.2 for Windows and Macintosh. Adobe has recommended its users to update their current version of software to 9.3.1 and for the users who cannot update to 9.3.1

Security firm Qualys report that Adobe Reader’s software should be a top priority for IT security managers.

Adobe and Barnes announces further advancement for eBook distribution by joining hands to standardize the open EPUB and PDF eBooks and collaborating on a content protection standard based on Barnes & Noble and Adobe technology. Barnes and Noble will make all their content available to customers in PDF, which is one of the most compatible and secure file formats.

Early last week – Adobe rolled out a substantial path which covered just under 30 security issues. These vulnerabilities were said by ChannelWeb to leave susceptible to attacks by infected PDF-apps.

Yet another major security hole for Adobe Reader — as detailed in ComputerWeekly.com, they won’t say why, but they’re looking to release an update tomorrow.

Nart Villeneuve, a research fellow at the Citizen Lab, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto reports a malware attack on foreign correspondents in China. This attack was performed by way of an email with a PDF attachment — exploiting holes in Adobe Reader which dropped malware onto the host computer.

A PDF file can now be converted into an executable file using CoolPDF’s PDF2EXE V3.0.

“Extra, extra, read all about it – get your free PDF creator, free pdf converter, and free PDF reader!”
Check out the freebie low-down on free pdf creators we’ve listed over at 4xPDF — we’ve covered off the top eight that don’t include hideous watermarks, ordered according to the stats on Download.com.

Of course, it wasn’t always that way — there was a time when you actually had to pay $50 for a copy of Adobe Reader as well as $2,495 for a copy of Acrobat Distiller – wow, back in the good ol’ …