Re: PDFs and Viruses?

["Edgar D' Souza" <edgar -dot- b -dot- dsouza -at- gmail -dot- com>]

On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 7:44 PM, Keith Hansen <KRH -at- weiland-wfg -dot- com> wrote:
> Question folks... Can a PDF file contain a virus?

First off, it should be possible to attach a virus executable in a
PDF, just like attaching the source document of the PDF, or related
spreadsheets, or other files. If the PDF gets past antivirus software,
and the person reading the PDF can be tricked into running the EXE,
then the system is infected.

However, even without such an attachment, a PDF file can still be an
attack vector, especially if reader software is not updated with
security patches -- an attacker can run malicious code on your
computer if you open a specially crafted PDF. While this isn't
necessarily a "virus contained in the PDF," the malicious code could
download other malware, including "classical" self-reproducing
computer virii.

Here are some examples:
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/508357
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/486225

Regards,
Ed.
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