How severe is CVE-2013-0640?

CVE-2013-0640 has a CVSS score of 7.8/10, rated HIGH. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which products are affected by CVE-2013-0640?

CVE-2013-0640 affects the following products: adobe acrobat, adobe acrobat reader, opensuse opensuse, redhat enterprise linux desktop, redhat enterprise linux eus, redhat enterprise linux server, redhat enterprise linux server aus, redhat enterprise linux workstation, and 1 more.

How do I patch CVE-2013-0640?

Apply the adobe acrobat security patch or hotfix for CVE-2013-0640 on the affected version, following the vendor advisory for your exact build.

How do I detect CVE-2013-0640 across my infrastructure?

Inventory every adobe acrobat deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.

How do I mitigate CVE-2013-0640 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.

Is CVE-2013-0640 actively exploited in the wild?

Yes. There are 3 known exploit references for CVE-2013-0640, including 1 documented proof-of-concept exploit on Exploit-DB and 2 in-the-wild exploitations observed on GitHub and other sources. Treat this as actively exploitable and prioritize patching immediately. All exploit code should only be run in an isolated sandbox environment for research or authorized testing — never against production systems without explicit written authorization.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2013-0640?

CVE-2013-0640 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 86.9%, placing it in the 100th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. A score above 50% indicates significantly elevated exploitation risk — immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Is CVE-2013-0640 in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog?

Yes. CVE-2013-0640 (Adobe Reader and Acrobat Memory Corruption Vulnerability) was added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog on 2022-03-03. CISA required all US federal civilian agencies to remediate this vulnerability by 2022-03-24. The required action was: Apply updates per vendor instructions. Being listed in the KEV catalog is the strongest possible confirmation of active exploitation — treat this as a critical priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2013-0640?

CVE-2013-0640 is classified as Out-of-bounds Write (CWE-787). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

Which products and versions are affected by CVE-2013-0640?

CVE-2013-0640 affects adobe acrobat; adobe acrobat reader; opensuse opensuse (2 versions, e.g. 11.4, 12.1); redhat enterprise linux desktop (1 version, e.g. 6.0), and 5 more product(s). Check the affected-products list on this page against your deployed version to confirm exposure.

When was CVE-2013-0640 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2013-0640 was published on February 14, 2013 and was last updated on June 16, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🛡️

CISA KEV · ACTIVELY EXPLOITED

HIGH severity

CVE-2013-0640 — Acrobat

HIGH

CVE-2013-0640 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) Out-of-bounds Write 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. A fix is available — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x before 9.5.4, 10.x before 10.1.6, and 11.x before 11.0.02 allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption)…

Published

Feb 14, 2013

Updated

Jun 16, 2026

Affected

9 products

Patched

See advisory

Exploits

3 known

Exploitation data as of Oct 22, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, CISA KEV, FIRST.org (EPSS)

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-2013-0640.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

86.9%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Very High Risk0.00%

Lower risk than most CVEs100th percentile — riskier than 100% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2013-0640 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

Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x before 9.5.4, 10.x before 10.1.6, and 11.x before 11.0.02 allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption) via a crafted PDF document, as exploited in the wild in February 2013.

Affected Products

9 products · 17 configurations

Application

acrobatadobe

≥ 11.0 && < 11.0.02

range

Application

acrobat readeradobe

≥ 9.0 && < 9.5.4

range

opensuseopensuse

2 versions

11.412.1

enterprise linux desktopredhat

1 version

6.0

enterprise linux eusredhat

2 versions

5.96.4

enterprise linux serverredhat

1 version

6.0

Exploits & PoCs

Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.

EDB-29881localwindows✓ Verified

Adobe Acrobat Reader - ASLR + DEP Bypass with Sandbox Bypass

by w3bd3vil & abh1sek · Nov 28, 2013

Exploit-DB Source

Detection & mitigation playbook

Vendor / appliance

Detect
Inventory every adobe acrobat deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Fix
Apply the adobe acrobat security patch or hotfix for CVE-2013-0640 on the affected version, following the vendor advisory for your exact build.
Workarounds
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. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.

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.

Red HatCritical

This issue affects the version of Adobe Acroread as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. Updates will be released as soon as they are made generally available by Adobe.

Product	Fixed in	Advisory
Supplementary for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5	`acroread-0:9.5.4-1.el5_9`	RHSA-2013:0551

Frequently Asked Questions

O3 Security · Runtime Protection

Is CVE-2013-0640 being exploited in your environment?

Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.

Protect my workloads How runtime protection works