If you use Adobe Acrobat Reader to read PDFs or Adobe Acrobat to create PDFs, it's time for an update. Adobe released a new version yesterday (November 3) for both Mac and PC that fixes several serious security flaws.

In all, there are 14 vulnerabilities, ranging in severity from "critical" to "important," Adobe wrote in a security bulletin. The three vulnerabilities in the former category all allow arbitrary code execution.

Other flaws allow information disclosure (access to personal data such as passwords) and local privilege escalation (PDF gains administrator privileges on a machine). [The affected programs are Acrobat DC, Acrobat 2020, Acrobat 2017, Acrobat Reader DC, Acrobat Reader 2020, and Acrobat Reader 2017 for Mac and Windows. ("DC" stands for "Document Cloud," the 2015 version, but it adds new features not found in the other versions.)

To manually update one of these programs, open the program, click "Help" in the upper left corner, scroll down and select "Check for Updates." An updater window will open, checking for updates and prompting you to download and install whatever is available. You will need to close the Reader program while the updater is running.

If you leave the program open, it will eventually indicate that the update is ready to download and install. Alternatively,https://get2.adobe.com/reader/.から新しいReader you can copy the DC and start over (please uncheck the Unwanted Programs option before starting the download).

Vulnerable version numbers are Acrobat and Reader DC before 2020.012.20048, Acrobat and Reader 2020 before 2020.001.30005, Acrobat and Reader 2017 before 2017.011.30175 .

I ran an update of Acrobat Reader DC for Windows to version 20.012.20064.

Frankly, I don't need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view PDFs. Any modern desktop web browser will do.

Nor do you need the paid Adobe Acrobat to create or edit PDFs; Adobe released the Portable Document Format into the public domain in 2008, so the format is now an open standard Adobe released the Portable Document Format into the public domain in 2008, so the format is now an open standard. We have a list of the best PDF editors and a list of the best free PDF editors.