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There’s a new zero-day vulnerability in the wild that exploits a security hole found in the very popular Adobe Flash 9 & 10 Player. With the introduction of Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe Acrobat 9 Reader came the ability to embed/view Flash animations in PDF documents. Technically, this vulnerability affects Adobe Acrobat on all platforms. However, attackers have only targeted PC users at this point.

Attackers are exploiting this newly discovered security hole by embedding malicious Flash content in PDF files and then sending these infected documents to victims. Once the victim opens the infected PDF file, a data stealing trojan is then loaded onto the victims PC. Adobe announced today that a patch to fix the security vulnerability will be released next week. So what do you protect yourself until then? We’ll tell you how!

Adobe has recommended that users disable flash in Acrobat until the fix is released. Security experts have also recommended that users completely disable Adobe Flash on their systems until the fix is released. Even though attackers have only used PDF files at this point, they’re concerned that this exploit may move to the web. Personally, I think that completely removing Adobe Flash from your system is a little overkill.

As always, don’t open PDF from people you don’t know. Even if the attachment is from a person you know, but something about it seems strange, trust your instincts. Contact the person who sent you the PDF file and ask them about it. The next thing you can do is disable Adobe Flash in Acrobat. You can do this by clicking Edit > Preferences > Multimedia Trust (Legacy) > Highlight Permissions for Adobe Flash > Change Permissions for Selected Multimedia Player > Never > Click OK.

Finally, I can’t stress how import this last step is. Make sure your antivirus software is fully updated! If your antivirus software is up-to-date, you’re going to be protected against all kinds of bad things floating around the internet!