More vulnerabilities found in PDF file format

Jeremy Conway, an application security researcher at NitroSecurity, said the attack scenario he has discovered shows PDFs are "wormable". Computer viruses are capable, by definition, of overwriting other files to spread. Conway's research is chiefly notable for illustrating how a benign PDF file might become infected using features supported by PDF specification, not a software vulnerability as such, and without the use of external binaries or JavaScript.

The "wormable PDF" research comes days after another security researcher, Didier Stevens, showed how it was possible to both embed malicious executables in PDFs and manipulate pop-up dialog boxes to trick victims into running a malicious payload. Both Adobe and FoxIT are working on a fix against the security shortcomings in their respective PDF viewing packages illustrated by the research.