CVE-2025-27162
Published: 11 March 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-27162 is a high-severity Access of Uninitialized Pointer (CWE-824) vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203); ranked at the 25.1th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-16 (Memory Protection) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Requires identification, testing, and installation of patches for the specific vulnerable Adobe Acrobat Reader versions to eliminate the uninitialized pointer flaw.
Deploys memory protection mechanisms such as DEP and ASLR to prevent arbitrary code execution resulting from uninitialized pointer dereferences in Acrobat Reader.
Malicious code protection scans and blocks malicious PDF files that exploit the uninitialized pointer vulnerability upon user interaction.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
The vulnerability is a client-side RCE in Adobe Acrobat Reader triggered by opening a malicious file, directly enabling T1203 (Exploitation for Client Execution) via T1204.002 (User Execution: Malicious File).
NVD Description
Acrobat Reader versions 24.001.30225, 20.005.30748, 25.001.20428 and earlier are affected by an Access of Uninitialized Pointer vulnerability that could result in arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user. Exploitation of this issue requires user interaction in that…
more
a victim must open a malicious file.
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2025-27162 is an Access of Uninitialized Pointer vulnerability (CWE-824) affecting Adobe Acrobat Reader versions 24.001.30225, 20.005.30748, 25.001.20428, and earlier. Published on 2025-03-11, this flaw could result in arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user.
Exploitation requires user interaction, as a victim must open a malicious file. An attacker needs local access (AV:L) with no privileges (PR:N) and can exploit it with low attack complexity (AC:L), leading to high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:H/I:H/A:H) within the current scope (S:U). The vulnerability has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.8.
Adobe Security Bulletin APSB25-14 at https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/acrobat/apsb25-14.html provides details on mitigation.
Details
- CWE(s)