Adobe Confirms Source Code Breach, Theft of Customer Data

Adobe Systems confirmed its network had been breached in an attack that compromised information belonging to 2.9 million of its customers.

This includes customer names, encrypted debit and credit card numbers and other data related to customer orders. According to Adobe, it is not believed the attackers removed decrypted credit or debit card numbers from its systems.

“We deeply regret that this incident occurred,” Adobe Chief Security Officer Brad Arkin wrote in a blog post. “We’re working diligently internally, as well as with external partners and law enforcement, to address the incident.”

The company has contacted law enforcement about the situation.

In addition to the customer information, Adobe also confirmed it is investigating the theft of source code information for Adobe Acrobat, ColdFusion, ColdFusion Builder and other Adobe products. The theft was discovered by security reporter Brian Krebs and security researcher Alex Holden, CISO of Hold Security LLC as the poured over the contents of a server used by the cybercriminals recently revealed to have been behind damaging attacks on multiple data aggregators.

So far, Arkin stated that Adobe is not aware of any zero-day exploits targeting any Adobe products. Still, the company recommends customers only run supported versions of Adobe software and apply all available security updates.

In response to the attacks, Adobe is resetting the passwords of affected customers to prevent unauthorized access to Adobe ID accounts. Users impacted by the move will receive an email requiring them to change their passwords. The company is also notifying customers whose credit or debit card information was stolen. The banks that process customer payments for Adobe have been notified as well.

“The main headline is that 3 million credit card numbers were hacked from Adobe,” said Aaron Titus, chief privacy officer at Identity Finder. “While this is a serious breach by any measure, to Adobe’s credit the numbers seem to have been encrypted. The under-reported, but far more worrying story is that hackers apparently have obtained 40 GB of Adobe source code, which may include Adobe’s most popular products, Adobe Acrobat and ColdFusion. Security professionals in organizations around the world should be on high alert for an increase in Acrobat-related attacks as hackers analyze the code for possible zero-day exploits.”