CVE-2011-0611
HIGHCVE-2011-0611 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) CWE-843 vulnerability in adobe acrobat. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-03-03) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. O3 Security detects and blocks CVE-2011-0611 exploitation at runtime via eBPF exploit-chain detection and L7 egress monitoring, even on unpatched systems.
Adobe Flash Player before 10.2.154.27 on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Solaris and 10.2.156.12 and earlier on Android; Adobe AIR before 2.6.19140; and Authplay.dll (aka AuthPlayLib.bundle)…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2022-03-03. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-03-24.
- 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-2011-0611.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2011-0611 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE sits: patch-first territory.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 368,770 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Description
Adobe Flash Player before 10.2.154.27 on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Solaris and 10.2.156.12 and earlier on Android; Adobe AIR before 2.6.19140; and Authplay.dll (aka AuthPlayLib.bundle) in Adobe Reader 9.x before 9.4.4 and 10.x through 10.0.1 on Windows, Adobe Reader 9.x before 9.4.4 and 10.x before 10.0.3 on Mac OS X, and Adobe Acrobat 9.x before 9.4.4 and 10.x before 10.0.3 on Windows and Mac OS X allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (application crash) via crafted Flash content; as demonstrated by a Microsoft Office document with an embedded .swf file that has a size inconsistency in a "group of included constants," object type confusion, ActionScript that adds custom functions to prototypes, and Date objects; and as exploited in the wild in April 2011.
Affected Products
acrobatadobeairadobeflash playeradobereaderadobeResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Adobe Flash Player 10.2.153.1 - SWF Memory Corruption (Metasploit)
by Metasploit · Apr 16, 2011
Adobe Reader X 10.0.0 < 10.0.1 - Atom Type Confusion
by Snake · Jul 3, 2011
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every adobe acrobat deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above. Because the exploit targets the running system rather than your application code, also watch for remote code execution at the network and runtime layer — O3 flags the exploit behaviour from runtime telemetry and egress traffic even before a vulnerable build is confirmed.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2011-0611 yet — track the adobe acrobat advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Cut exposure now: restrict the management/admin interface to trusted networks, segment the device, and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations and any WAF/IPS signature. O3's runtime protection blocks the exploit chain at execution, holding the line on unpatched or end-of-life systems until you can patch.
How O3 protects you
O3 detects and blocks CVE-2011-0611 exploitation at runtime: eBPF exploit-chain detection, plus L7 egress monitoring that catches the post-exploitation callback and severs the attacker's outbound channel.
Tailored to CVE-2011-0611. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2011-0611 being exploited in your environment?
O3's eBPF runtime sensors and L7 egress monitoring detect and block the CVE-2011-0611 exploit chain at execution — protecting unpatched and end-of-life systems until the vendor patch is applied.