[UPDATE]Adobe Reader/Acrobat Remote PDF Print Silently Vulnerability

by cocoruder(frankruder@hotmail.com)
http://ruder.cdut.net, updated on 2008.05.06


Summary:

    A design error vulnerability exists in Adobe Reader and Adobe
Acrobat Professional. A remote attacker who successfully exploit this
vulnerability can control the printer without user's permission.



Affected Software Versions:

    Adobe Reader 8.1.1 and earlier versions
    Adobe Acrobat Professional, 3D and Standard 8.1.1 and earlier versions



Details:

    This vulnerablity due to the design error of the javascript
fucntion "DOC.print()", following are the annotates of the function in
Adobe's Javascript API Reference(named "js_api_reference.pdf"):

  --START--

  (Acrobat 7.0) Non-interactive printing can only be executed during
batch, console, and menu events. Printing is made non-interactive by
setting bUI to false or by setting the interactive property to silent,
for example:

    var pp = this.getPrintParams();
    pp.interactive = pp.constants.interactionLevel.silent;

  Outside of batch, console, and menu events, the values of bUI and of
interactive are ignored and a print dialog box will always be
presented.

  --END--

    But Adobe has not realized it in the current version, so we can
call the printer silently without user's permission. The attacker can
build a vicious PDF document, once the victim view the document with
Adobe Acrobat Professional or Adobe Reader, it will waste a lot of the
victim's printer resources. For example, attacker can build a PDF
document including the following scripts:

  var pp = this.getPrintParams();
  pp.interactive = pp.constants.interactionLevel.silent;

  for (var i=0;i<10000;i++)
  {
    this.print(pp);
  }

    It will print this document 1000 times without user's permission.



Solution:

    Adobe has released an advisory for this vulnerability and a patch
for Adobe Acrobat/Reader 8 but not for Adobe Acrobat/Reader 7 which
are available on:

    http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa08-01.html

    Right now Adobe released the final advisory and patch which are
available on:

    http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb08-13.html

    Fortinet advisory can be found at:

    http://www.fortiguardcenter.com



CVE Information:

    CVE-2008-0655



Disclosure Timeline:

    2007.11.01        Vendor notified
    2007.11.02        Vendor responded
    2008.02.07        Initial coordinated disclosure
    2008.05.06        Final coordinated disclosure



--EOF--