Adobe Zero-Day Exploit Targeted Defense Contractors

Attacks exploiting an Adobe Reader zero-day vulnerability appear to have targeted defense contractors and other organizations, according to security researchers.

Adobe issued a security advisory on Dec. 6 warning Adobe Reader and Acrobat users of a critical vulnerability in how the programs accessed PDF files. The flaw was also being exploited in the wild against Adobe Reader 9.x users on Windows, Adobe said.

Symantec researchers found that attack emails with malicious PDF files that exploited the flaw were sent to telecommunications and chemical companies as well as defense contractors, Joshua Talbot, security intelligence manager of Symantec Security Response, told eWEEK.