Fortinet Discovers Adobe Tech Communications Suite DLL PreLoading Vulnerability

Summary

Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs has discovered a DLL preloading vulnerability in Adobe Tech Communications Suite for Windows.

Adobe Technical Communication Suite is a collection of applications for technical communicators, help authors, instructional designers, and eLearning and training design professionals. It includes Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Captivate, Adobe Device Central, Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Presenter, Adobe RoboHelp and Adobe 3D Reviewer. The suite allows users to author, manage, and publish interactive instructional information from technical documents and books to online help systems, knowledge bases, interactive training, and eLearning contents.

Adobe Tech Communications Suite for Windows is susceptible to a DLL preloading vulnerability. The issue occurs when the application looks to load a DLL for execution and an attacker provides a malicious DLL to use instead. The application generally follows a specific search path to locate the DLL. The vulnerability can be exploited by a simple file write (or potentially an over-write) which results in a foreign DLL running under the context of the application.

Solutions

Users should apply the solution provided by Adobe.

Timeline

Fortinet reported the vulnerability to Adobe on May 21, 2018

Adobe confirmed the vulnerability on September 28, 2018.

Adobe patched the vulnerability on October 9, 2018.

Acknowledgement

This vulnerability was discovered by Kushal Arvind Shah of Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs.

References

• https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/techcommsuite/apsb18-38.html
• CVE-2018-15976

IPS Subscription

Fortinet customers who subscribe to Fortinet's intrusion prevention (IPS) service should be protected against this vulnerability with the appropriate configuration parameters in place. Fortinet's IPS service is one component of FortiGuard Subscription Services, which also offer comprehensive solutions such as antivirus, Web content filtering and antispam capabilities. These services enable protection against threats on both application and network layers. FortiGuard Services are continuously updated by FortiGuard Labs, which enables Fortinet to deliver a combination of multi-layered security intelligence and true zero-day protection from new and emerging threats. These updates are delivered to all FortiGate, FortiMail and FortiClient products. Fortinet strictly follows responsible disclosure guidelines to ensure optimum protection during a threat's lifecycle.