CVE-2009-3459
HIGHCVE-2009-3459 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) Buffer Overflow vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2026-05-20) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Heap-based buffer overflow in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 7.x before 7.1.4, 8.x before 8.1.7, and 9.x before 9.2 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted PDF file…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2026-05-20. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2026-06-03.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2009-3459.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2009-3459 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 50–90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Heap-based buffer overflow in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 7.x before 7.1.4, 8.x before 8.1.7, and 9.x before 9.2 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted PDF file that triggers memory corruption, as exploited in the wild in October 2009. NOTE: some of these details are obtained from third party information.
Affected Products
acrobatadobeacrobat readeradobeResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Adobe - FlateDecode Stream Predictor 02 Integer Overflow (Metasploit) (2)
by Metasploit · Sep 25, 2010
Adobe - FlateDecode Stream Predictor 02 Integer Overflow (Metasploit) (1)
by Metasploit · Sep 20, 2010
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2009-3459 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Stop feeding it untrusted input: reject or quarantine files and payloads from unverified sources until you can upgrade, restrict accepted formats to the ones you actually need, and run the parsing or decoding step in a least-privileged sandbox or short-lived worker so a crash or corrupted read cannot reach the rest of the process.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Extras for RHEL 3 | acroread-0:8.1.7-1 | RHSA-2009:1499 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2009-3459 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.