Security updates available for Adobe Reader and Acrobat

Adobe shipped a critical security update to its Adobe products on Jan 12, 2010 that addresses a vulnerability that can cause the application to crash and allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.

Note: To determine the version of any of the above applications, open the Adobe program. Then from the Help menu choose About Adobe, (name of program). You should see the version listed in a new box. Then, you can click anywhere on this box to close it.

The current version of the Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader is version 9.3. If you have an earlier version of Adobe Acrobat Professional, version 8, Adobe has released an 8.2 update as well.

Action Required: Ag IT recommends that College of Ag Science faculty and staff update any Adobe products to their current version.

1. To update Adobe Reader 9 to the current version, follow our How To Install and Configure Adobe Reader v9 for Windows.
   
   
2. If your computer has Adobe Acrobat Professional v8 or v9 installed as well, you should be able to use the built-in Updater program to update the software.
   a) From the Help menu choose Check for Updates.
   b) When the update is ready, click Install Now.
   c) Follow the rest of the prompts to install the update.
   
   Note: If the automatic updater does not find the latest updates, and your version is not the most current one, go to the Acrobat for Windows downloads page. Scroll down to locate the update for your version. Download and install.
   
   Note: Earlier versions of Adobe Acrobat Professional (version 7 or lower) will not be patched.

If you have Adobe Reader version 8.x on your computer, you should remove this version and update to Adobe Reader 9.3. See our How To Install and Configure Adobe Reader v9 for Windows.

The Adobe Security bulletin, Security Updates available for Adobe Reader and Acrobat, has additional information and links.