Following drama last month that started when Adobe said it would essentially force users to pay for an upgrade to address security vulnerabilities in some of its most popular graphics applications but later changed its tune, Adobe today released security bulletins for its Photoshop and Illustrator Products.
Today Adobe released security updates for Adobe Photoshop CS5 (12.0) and Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 (12.1) for Windows and Macintosh, and Adobe Illustrator CS5 (15.0.x) and Adobe Illustrator CS5.5 (15.1) for Windows and Macintosh to address the issues that surfaced last month.
The focus of the fixes address a security issue related to the parsing of TIFF images (a common format used for print images). If a malicious TIFF is opened, an attacker could execute code on the system with the privileges of the active user. The vulnerabilities impact both the Windows and Mac versions of the imaging software.
In early May, Adobe said that in order to fix the issue, users would have to upgrade their software to the newer CS6 version—something users would have to pay for. But after complaints, bad press, and user backlash, Adobe changed its tune, the next day saying that it would develop patches that wouldn’t force users with a paid upgrade in order to fix the security vulnerabilities.
The fixes are now available and should be applied as soon as possible to minimize risk.
More information and information on the patches are available here:
• APSB12-10 – Security update available for Adobe Illustrator
• APSB12-11 – Security update available for Adobe Photoshop