Adobe to beef up PDF security with Reader sandboxing

[bill]

If they do this I might feel safe recommending Adobe Reader again!

Adobe to beef up PDF security with Reader sandboxing [computerworld.com]

Adobe Systems Inc. today announced that it will harden the next version of its popular Reader PDF viewer, a frequent target of attacks, by adding "sandboxing" technology to the software.

Sandboxing, perhaps best known for its use in Google Inc.'s Chrome browser, isolates processes from one another and the rest of the machine, preventing or hindering malicious code from escaping an application to wreak havoc or infect the computer.

Previously, security experts had said that sandboxing Reader would be a smart move by Adobe as it struggled to lock down the program and prevent vulnerabilities from being exploited by hackers.

According to Brad Arkin, Adobe's director of security and privacy, sandboxing will be added to the next major Windows upgrade to Reader, Version 10, before the end of the year.

[lammert]

It's a good move that a software provider tries to stop abuse of its software by design, instead of fixing holes after they have been identified. But I would rather see the whole concept of sandboxing and isolating processes and authorizations to be implemented at the operating system level rather than the application level.