CVE-2022-28837 in Acrobat
Summary
by MITRE • 05/11/2022
Acrobat Pro DC version 22.001.2011x (and earlier), 20.005.3033x (and earlier) and 17.012.3022x (and earlier) are affected by a use-after-free vulnerability that could lead to disclosure of sensitive memory. An attacker could leverage this vulnerability to bypass mitigations such as ASLR. Exploitation of this issue requires user interaction in that a victim must open a malicious file.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/13/2022
This vulnerability resides in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC across multiple version lines including 22.001.2011x and earlier, 20.005.3033x and earlier, and 17.012.3022x and earlier, representing a critical use-after-free flaw that fundamentally compromises system security. The vulnerability stems from improper memory management where a program continues to reference memory locations after they have been freed, creating opportunities for malicious code to access or manipulate previously deallocated memory segments. This specific weakness aligns with CWE-416, which categorizes use-after-free conditions as a critical memory safety issue that can result in arbitrary code execution and privilege escalation. The flaw manifests when the application processes maliciously crafted files, requiring user interaction to trigger the exploit through opening the specially crafted document.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple memory corruption, as it specifically enables attackers to bypass modern exploit mitigations such as Address Space Layout Randomization, which is designed to randomize memory addresses to prevent exploitation. When an attacker successfully exploits this use-after-free condition, they can potentially disclose sensitive memory contents including stack canaries, heap metadata, or other security-related information that would normally be protected. This memory disclosure capability undermines fundamental security mechanisms and provides attackers with critical information needed to craft more sophisticated exploits. The vulnerability's requirement for user interaction through opening a malicious file represents a common attack vector that leverages social engineering tactics to deliver the exploit, making it particularly dangerous in enterprise environments where users frequently open documents from untrusted sources.
The exploitation process typically involves crafting a malicious PDF file that triggers the vulnerable code path in Acrobat Pro DC, causing the application to free memory while still referencing it in subsequent operations. This creates a window where attacker-controlled data can be written to the freed memory location, potentially allowing for code execution or information disclosure. Security researchers have identified that this vulnerability falls under the ATT&CK technique T1203, which involves exploiting software vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access, and specifically relates to T1068, which covers local privilege escalation through software exploitation. Organizations should prioritize patching affected versions of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to address this vulnerability, as the use-after-free condition represents a well-established attack pattern that has been successfully exploited in the wild. The recommended mitigation strategy includes immediate deployment of Adobe's security patches, implementation of email filtering solutions to prevent delivery of malicious PDF files, and user education programs to reduce the likelihood of successful social engineering attacks that rely on user interaction to trigger the vulnerability.