CVE-2016-4201

critical

Published 2016-07-13 · Modified 2026-05-06

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CVSS v3

9.8

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVSS v4 NEW

—

not yet in upstream

VIR risk

10.0

Description

Adobe Reader and Acrobat before 11.0.17, Acrobat and Acrobat Reader DC Classic before 15.006.30198, and Acrobat and Acrobat Reader DC Continuous before 15.017.20050 on Windows and OS X allow attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption) via unspecified vectors, a different vulnerability than CVE-2016-4191, CVE-2016-4192, CVE-2016-4193, CVE-2016-4194, CVE-2016-4195, CVE-2016-4196, CVE-2016-4197, CVE-2016-4198, CVE-2016-4199, CVE-2016-4200, CVE-2016-4202, CVE-2016-4203, CVE-2016-4204, CVE-2016-4205, CVE-2016-4206, CVE-2016-4207, CVE-2016-4208, CVE-2016-4211, CVE-2016-4212, CVE-2016-4213, CVE-2016-4214, CVE-2016-4250, CVE-2016-4251, CVE-2016-4252, and CVE-2016-4254.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

97%

Patch ETA

—

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

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Exploits

Public proof-of-concept code below. AS-IS, for defenders and authorised testing only.

Exploit-DB

EDB-40101 dos multiple verified text · 2 KB

COSIG · 2016-07-13

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC 15.016.20045 - Invalid Font '.ttf' Memory Corruption (7)

text exploit Source: Exploit-DB

#####################################################################################

# Application: Adobe Acrobat Reader DC
# Platforms: Windows,OSX
# Versions: 15.016.20045 and earlier
# Author: Sébastien Morin of COSIG
# Website: https://cosig.gouv.qc.ca/en/advisory/
# Twitter: @COSIG_
# Date: July 12, 2016
# CVE: CVE-2016-4201
# COSIG-2016-24

#####################################################################################

1) Introduction
2) Report Timeline
3) Technical details
4) POC

#####################################################################################

================
1) Introduction
================
Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software and Web services developed by Adobe Systems to view, create, manipulate, print and manage files in Portable Document Format (PDF).

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Acrobat)

#####################################################################################

====================
2) Report Timeline
====================
2016-05-18: Sébastien Morin of COSIG report this vulnerability to Adobe PSIRT;
2016-06-08: Adobe PSIRT confirm this vulnerability;
2016-07-12: Adobe fixed the issue (APSB16-26);
2016-07-12: Advisory released by COSIG;

#####################################################################################

=====================
3) Technical details
=====================
The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to execute malicious code or access to part of dynamically allocated memory using a user interaction
that opens a specially crafted PDF file containing an invalid font (.ttf ) including invalid data.

#####################################################################################

===========
4) POC
===========

https://cosig.gouv.qc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/COSIG-2016-24.pdf
https://gitlab.com/exploit-database/exploitdb-bin-sploits/-/raw/main/bin-sploits/40101.zip

####################################################################################

OS impact

macOS Fixed 1 release

Version	Status	Fixed in
—	Not affected	—

Application impact

Vendor	Product	Versions
adobe	acrobat	`{"endIncluding":"11.0.16"}`
adobe	acrobat_dc	`{"endIncluding":"15.006.30174"}`
adobe	acrobat_reader_dc	`{"endIncluding":"15.006.30174"}`
adobe	reader	`{"endIncluding":"11.0.16"}`

References

CWEs

CWE-119

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.