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Adobe Acrobat possible vector for Chinese attacks on Google.

8 points by jmount 17y ago

btilly 17y ago
Finally we're starting to see speculation about who some of the at least 20 other companies are.
GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
Flagging this for the bizaare misrepresentation of the article. There's no suggestion that Adobe was the culprit (i.e. "implicated") and that's not the article title or even the main thrust of the article.
- jmount 17y ago
  Flag whatever you want. From the article: "Such attacks, most often delivered using Adobe PDF documents sent by e-mail, secretly deposit a software file on a user's hard drive allowing the computer to be remotely accessed. Typically, top personnel with access to high-level information are targeted with such software, known as malware." That (plus Adobe's insistence of adding scripting to PDF) is why I used the word implicated. Adobe may not have any bad intent on this, but they are possibly partly responsible.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    In the context of the past few days, your wording implies to me that Adobe was implicated for perpetrating the attacks. That was not your intent, but that's how it sounds to me, and I suspect to most people. A better title is "PDF possible vector for Chinese attacks on Google."
    - jmount 17y ago
      Fine, changing "Adobe implicated in Google security breach?" to "PDF possible vector for Chinese attacks on Google." (adding this comment so the above discussion has some remaining context). But I still think Adobe needs a bit of heat on this issue.
      - GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
        Unflagging now that the title is changed to something closer to the actual article. It's a real pain when people use the title of an article to insert their own editorial opinions.
jws 17y ago
Is there any suggestion that this is PDF wide? Everything I've seen points to an Adobe Acrobat problem. At the risk of juggling the title even more, s/PDF/Adobe Acrobat/
- jmount 17y ago
  Changed it again. But, no it seems to be Acrobat only. Funny coincidence this is coming on the tail- end of an another Adobe worry for me. I found out you can't install Adobe Acrobat Reader for Internet Explorer without installing both Adobe Download Manager and Adobe AIR. Then I tried Firefox on Windows and found out it refuses to install the plugin without admin rights, even though Firefox had been installed by a user (without admin rights).
jmount 17y ago
Adobe Acrobat seems to have been either cleared of suspicion: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2358121,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2358121,00.asp or involved in only some of the targets: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/google-hack-attack/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/google-hack-attack/ . I still find it hard to believe that IE6 was an important vector into Google- who there besides those in a sandboxed QA environment would use a browser that out of date?

8 points by jmount 17y ago

Finally we're starting to see speculation about who some of the at least 20 other companies are.

Flagging this for the bizaare misrepresentation of the article. There's no suggestion that Adobe was the culprit (i.e. "implicated") and that's not the article title or even the main thrust of the article.

jmount 17y ago
Flag whatever you want. From the article: "Such attacks, most often delivered using Adobe PDF documents sent by e-mail, secretly deposit a software file on a user's hard drive allowing the computer to be remotely accessed. Typically, top personnel with access to high-level information are targeted with such software, known as malware." That (plus Adobe's insistence of adding scripting to PDF) is why I used the word implicated. Adobe may not have any bad intent on this, but they are possibly partly responsible.
- scott_s 17y ago
  In the context of the past few days, your wording implies to me that Adobe was implicated for perpetrating the attacks. That was not your intent, but that's how it sounds to me, and I suspect to most people. A better title is "PDF possible vector for Chinese attacks on Google."
  - jmount 17y ago
    Fine, changing "Adobe implicated in Google security breach?" to "PDF possible vector for Chinese attacks on Google." (adding this comment so the above discussion has some remaining context). But I still think Adobe needs a bit of heat on this issue.
    - GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
      Unflagging now that the title is changed to something closer to the actual article. It's a real pain when people use the title of an article to insert their own editorial opinions.

jws 17y ago

Is there any suggestion that this is PDF wide? Everything I've seen points to an Adobe Acrobat problem. At the risk of juggling the title even more, s/PDF/Adobe Acrobat/

jmount 17y ago
Changed it again. But, no it seems to be Acrobat only. Funny coincidence this is coming on the tail- end of an another Adobe worry for me. I found out you can't install Adobe Acrobat Reader for Internet Explorer without installing both Adobe Download Manager and Adobe AIR. Then I tried Firefox on Windows and found out it refuses to install the plugin without admin rights, even though Firefox had been installed by a user (without admin rights).

jmount 17y ago

Adobe Acrobat seems to have been either cleared of suspicion: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2358121,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2358121,00.asp or involved in only some of the targets: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/google-hack-attack/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/google-hack-attack/ . I still find it hard to believe that IE6 was an important vector into Google- who there besides those in a sandboxed QA environment would use a browser that out of date?