Adobe smoothes kinks in Acrobat

Software company Adobe issued an updated version of Acrobat for the Windows and the Macintosh OS X platforms this week, fixing three security holes that could be used to compromise a user's system.

The update fixes flaws in how the software handles the playback of Flash media in an Adobe portable document format (PDF) file, processes portable network graphics (PNG) and reads eBook files, the firm stated in an advisory.

"The update is currently available for English and Japanese," the company said in a statement. "The product team expects to make the update available to all 15 languages by the end of January 2005."

Security information firm Secunia rated the issues "highly critical," the company's second-highest rating for security threats.

The problems affect Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader versions 6.0 to 6.0.2 on the Windows and Macintosh OS X platforms. The latest versions are Adobe Acrobat 6.0.3 and Adobe Reader 6.0.3.

Adobe stated that the company is not aware of any incidents of attacks on its customers enabled by the flaw.

The company also released Adobe Reader for Unix 5.0.10, which fixes a single security issue.