CVE Alert: CVE-2025-54257 – Adobe – Acrobat Reader

Risk verdict

High risk, with potential for rapid impact if a user opens a crafted PDF; no confirmed active exploitation noted at present.

Why this matters

An attacker could execute arbitrary code in the victim’s context simply by prompting a user to open a malicious file, risking full compromise of the affected endpoint. The impact spans confidentiality, integrity, and availability, enabling data exposure, malware deployment, or persistence within the host; enterprise threat exposure increases with widespread Acrobat deployment.

Most likely attack path

Local attacker, low complexity, no privileges required but with user interaction needed. An attacker would need a victim to open a specially crafted PDF, triggering a use-after-free and code execution under the user’s rights. After initial access, lateral movement is constrained by user privileges and the host’s security controls, but successful execution could enable payload deployment and data access on that device.

Who is most exposed

Any organisation with Windows-based Acrobat Reader deployed across end-user devices or document-centric workflows (email attachments, shared PDFs) is at higher risk, especially where users regularly open external PDFs from untrusted sources.

Detection ideas

• Acrobat crashes or becomes unresponsive immediately after opening a PDF.
• Heap/memory corruption symptoms; crash dumps mentioning use-after-free patterns.
• Unusual process trees: Acrobat spawning unexpected child processes or injecting code.
• Post-open activity with abnormal network or file-system access from the Acrobat process.
• EDR alerts for suspicious payloads loaded after PDF interaction.

Mitigation and prioritisation

• Apply the latest Acrobat Reader patch releasing fixes for this issue.
• Enable Protected View/Enhanced Security and sandboxing for PDFs.
• Restrict or monitor attachment handling; block auto-opening of attachments from external sources.
• Ensure endpoint EDR visibility and enable anomaly alerts around Acrobat memory/CPU spikes.
• Coordinate patch windows with change-management; test in a staging cohort before broad rollout. If KEV or EPSS signals were present, treat as priority 1; currently use standard high-priority remediation.