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Fencer Vulns
medium 6.8

CVE-2009-1493 json

The customDictionaryOpen spell method in the JavaScript API in Adobe Reader 9.1, 8.1.4, 7.1.1, and earlier on Linux and UNIX allows remote…

published 2009-04-30 17 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2009-1490

cvss
6.8
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
21.8%
EPSS 21.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 97%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

The customDictionaryOpen spell method in the JavaScript API in Adobe Reader 9.1, 8.1.4, 7.1.1, and earlier on Linux and UNIX allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory corruption) or execute arbitrary code via a PDF file that triggers a call to this method with a long string in the second argument.

Patch / fix

  • acroread RHEL 3 EXTRAS 8.1.5-2
  • acroread RHEL 4 EXTRAS 8.1.5-1.el4
  • acroread RHEL 5 EXTRAS 8.1.5-1.el5
  • acroread-plugin RHEL 3 EXTRAS 8.1.5-2
  • acroread-plugin RHEL 4 EXTRAS 8.1.5-1.el4
  • acroread-plugin RHEL 5 EXTRAS 8.1.5-1.el5

red hat advisories RHSA-2009:0478

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2009-1493 updated cvss 6.8

acroread: multiple vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader 8.1.4

  • Red Hat Desktop version 3 Extras acroread 8.1.5-2, acroread-plugin 8.1.5-2 Red Hat Desktop version 4 Extras acroread 8.1.5-1.el4, acroread-plugin 8.1.5-1.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 3 Extras acroread 8.1.5-2, acroread-plugin 8.1.5-2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 4 Extras acroread 8.1.5-1.el4, acroread-plugin 8.1.5-1.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Supplementary (v. 5) acroread 8.1.5-1.el5, acroread-plugin 8.1.5-1.el5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 3 Extras acroread 8.1.5-2, acroread-plugin 8.1.5-2
    +4 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 4 Extras acroread 8.1.5-1.el4, acroread-plugin 8.1.5-1.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Supplementary (v. 5) acroread 8.1.5-1.el5, acroread-plugin 8.1.5-1.el5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 3 Extras acroread 8.1.5-2, acroread-plugin 8.1.5-2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 4 Extras acroread 8.1.5-1.el4, acroread-plugin 8.1.5-1.el4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:0478

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (EDB-8570)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

21.83% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 97% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-8570 Adobe 8.1.4/9.1 - 'customDictionaryOpen()' Code Execution remote, 2009-04-29
  • securityfocus.com http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/34740 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • packetstorm.linuxsecurity.com http://packetstorm.linuxsecurity.com/0904-exploits/spell.txt referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-399 Resource Management Errors

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.