Adobe Reader zero-day selling on criminal underground

A new exploit is being reportedly sold on underground cybercrime forums that is capable of compromising machines running the latest versions of Adobe Reader.

The flaw, reported by Russian forensic outfit Group-IB, was included in a modified version of the immensely popular BlackHole exploit toolkit.

The exploit targeted Windows-based installations of Adobe X and IX, and was selling for as much as US$50,000 on small underground markets, according to Group-IB.

Projects head Andrey Komarov said the exploit used crafted malformed PDF documents to break Reader’s sandbox – a new feat -- and execute shellcode.

“[This] is appealing for cybercrime gangs because in the past there was no documented method of how to bypass it with shellcode execution,” Komarov said.

“For now this flaw is distributed only in only small circles of the underground but it has the potential for much larger post-exploitation methods.”

He said some instances of exploitation, which was demonstrated in a proof-of-concept video, required the victim to restart their Web browser.

Adobe told blogger Brian Krebs it was investigating the vulnerability but could not yet confirm its authenticity.