CVE-2025-43574: Use After Free Vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat Reader

Overview

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system has reported a significant vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat Reader, identified as CVE-2025-43574. This vulnerability affects several versions of the Adobe Acrobat Reader, a widely used software for viewing, creating, manipulating, and managing files in Portable Document Format (PDF). This vulnerability is of particular concern due to the vast user base of Adobe Acrobat Reader, which spans across individual users, small businesses, and large corporations, making it a potential target for cybercriminals.
The vulnerability in question is a Use After Free Vulnerability that could result in arbitrary code execution. This means that an attacker could manipulate the software to execute malicious code in the context of the current user. Exploiting this vulnerability requires user interaction, specifically, the user must open a malicious file. The implications of such a vulnerability are severe, as it could potentially result in a system compromise or even data leakage.

Vulnerability Summary

CVE ID: CVE-2025-43574
Severity: High, CVSS Score 7.8
Attack Vector: Local
Privileges Required: User
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Arbitrary code execution, potential system compromise, and data leakage

Affected Products

Product | Affected Versions

Adobe Acrobat Reader | 24.001.30235, 20.005.30763, 25.001.20521 and earlier versions

How the Exploit Works

The exploit takes advantage of a Use After Free vulnerability in Acrobat Reader. This type of vulnerability occurs when a program continues to use a pointer after it has been freed. In this case, an attacker could trick a user into opening a malicious PDF file that contains a specific code designed to exploit the vulnerability. The malicious code is then executed in the context of the current user.

Conceptual Example Code

While the specific code to exploit this vulnerability is beyond the scope of this article, a conceptual example might look something like this:

# pseudocode
def exploit():
malicious_code = "..."
free(pointer)
# The pointer is now dangling
pointer.execute(malicious_code)

In this pseudocode example, the `malicious_code` would be tailored to exploit the Use After Free vulnerability in Acrobat Reader, leading to arbitrary code execution.