Adobe virus

[Marc]

For those of you that use Adobe Reader, or Adobe Acrobat (the one that lets you make PDFs); there has been a virus going around recently that does a lot of nasty things.

What It Does
This virus masks itself as a security software and claims to have found many viruses on your machine which you can remove for a fee of course. In reality it is planting the viruses on your PC. This virus is capable of rendering your Windows useless, and even screws up stuff in safe-mode. It will keep you from opening files, or accessing your desktop. It is quite the nasty thing. I had the honors of fixing one, it required a complete reformat.

This virus effects Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat versions 7.0 through 9.1. Version 6 and lower are safe. The virus exploits the JavaScript functionality (introduced into version 7).

How To Avoid It
Update Adobe Reader to 9.2 or later. If you absolutely have a need for a specific version of Adobe Reader there are update patches specifically for 7 and 8. For Adobe Acrobat there are patches you can install. Usually you can just get this from their built in updater.

[Alex]

This virus masks itself as a security software and claims to have found many viruses on your machine which you can remove for a fee of course.

Wow, thanks for the hot scoop, Marc. All of us would totally have fallen for that otherwise.