Microsoft, Adobe block zero-day attacks

Microsoft and Adobe Systems have announced that a recently released Microsoft toolkit can be used to block zero-day attacks targeting a security flaw in Adobe's Acrobat and Reader programs.

In an advisory published on Friday, Microsoft detailed how its Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit 2.0 could be used to short-circuit the threat. Adobe, which has not yet released a patch, updated its original advisory to reflect the new information.

Adobe considers the flaw to be "critical" — it could let an attacker take control of any of the millions of computers running what is far and away the most popular PDF viewing system.

For more on this story, read Microsoft, Adobe: PDF security flaw treatable on CNET News.