Watch Out for Adobe Acrobat X Scams this Week

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 16 Nov 2010

Last month Adobe announced that come November, it will roll out the Adobe Acrobat X family of products. Yesterday, the 15th of November, the company announced immediate availability of Adobe Acrobat X solutions. Acrobat X is currently available through Adobe Authorized Resellers, the Adobe Store and Adobe Direct Sales. Acrobat X Standard is available in English, French, German, and Japanese and so is Acrobat X Pro. Acrobat X Suite and Adobe Reader X will become available by the end of the month.

Users who are anxious to switch from Adobe Reader 9, the current stable version of Reader, to Adobe Reader X for example, should watch out of scams. The same goes for users who want to upgrade for Acrobat 9 to Acrobat X.

“With the availability of Adobe Acrobat X solutions this week, a reminder to be cautious when receiving email messages purporting to offer a download of a new version of Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader sent by entities claiming to be Adobe. Many of these emails require recipients to register and/or provide personal information. Please be aware that these emails have not been sent by Adobe or on Adobe’s behalf,” explained Wiebke Lips on behalf of the Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team ( PSIRT ).

If you get an email that asks you to pay for Adobe Reader X, or an email that claims to have Adobe Reader X attached, chances are that email is a scam. Adobe Reader X is offered free of charge, it doesn’t cost a thing. If you want to get it, you can do so from http://get.adobe.com/reader/, not by downloading an attachment from some unsolicited email or by following a link included in an unsolicited email.

If you do decide to get Adobe Reader X, here is what you will be able to do:
- You will be able to view and interact with PDF files that contain drawings, email messages, spreadsheets, videos, and other content types.
- You will be able to make notes and share feedback with others using the Sticky Notes and Highlighter tools.
- To fit more content on the screen, you can select the reading mode or the two-up mode.
- The print, zoom, find and other keyboard shortcuts can be used within the browser.
- Adobe Protected Mode, a sandboxing technology based on Microsoft’s Practical Windows Sandboxing Technique that will provide extra security by running all operations required to display PDF files in a sandbox (a very restricted and confined environment).
- From within Adobe Reader X you will be able to directly access online services at Acrobat.com

So remember: if you get an unsolicited email that claims to offer Adobe Acrobat X solutions, delete it. Do not click any link(s) included in the email.

Details on the Acrobat X family of products are available on Adobe.com.



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