CVE-2023-21608 — Acrobat
HIGHCVE-2023-21608 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) Use After Free vulnerability in adobe acrobat. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-10-10) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Adobe Acrobat Reader versions 22.003.20282 (and earlier), 22.003.20281 (and earlier) and 20.005.30418 (and earlier) are affected by a Use After Free vulnerability that could result…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-10-10. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2023-10-31.
- 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-2023-21608.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2023-21608 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 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 50–90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Adobe Acrobat Reader versions 22.003.20282 (and earlier), 22.003.20281 (and earlier) and 20.005.30418 (and earlier) are affected by a Use After Free vulnerability that could result in arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user. Exploitation of this issue requires user interaction in that a victim must open a malicious file.
Affected Products
acrobatadobeacrobat dcadobeacrobat readeradobeacrobat reader dcadobeResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every adobe acrobat deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2023-21608 yet — track the adobe acrobat advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-21608 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.