CVE-2009-2985
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedAdobe Reader and Acrobat 7.x before 7.1.4, 8.x before 8.1.7, and 9.x before 9.2 allow attackers to cause a denial of service (memory corruption) or possibly execute arbitrary code via unspecified vectors, a different vulnerability than CVE-2009-2996.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisA legacy NVD category grouping weaknesses in how resources — memory, file handles, connections — are allocated, used, and released. It gathers leaks, exhaustion, and lifecycle bugs under one label rather than naming a single flaw. The fix depends on the specific resource issue, generally pairing acquisition with release and bounding what any request can consume.
General guidance for the resource management errors class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data<= 9.1.3= 7.0= 7.0.1= 7.0.2= 7.0.3= 7.0.4= 7.0.5= 7.0.6= 7.0.7= 7.0.8= 7.0.9= 7.1.0<= 9.1.3= 7.0= 7.0.1= 7.0.2= 7.0.3= 7.0.4= 7.0.5= 7.0.6= 7.0.7= 7.0.8= 7.0.9= 7.1.0CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- M
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Complete
- Integrity
- Complete
- Availability
- Complete
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scopedUpgrade to Adobe Acrobat/Reader 7.1.4 (for 7.x), 8.1.7 (for 8.x), or 9.2 (for 9.x) or later - choose the appropriate major version branch based on your current installation
- Identify the currently installed Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader version by opening the application and checking Help > About (or About Adobe Reader)
- Visit the Adobe security bulletin at http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb09-15.html to obtain the official patch
- For Adobe Acrobat/Reader 7.x users: Download and install version 7.1.4 or later
- For Adobe Acrobat/Reader 8.x users: Download and install version 8.1.7 or later
- For Adobe Acrobat/Reader 9.x users: Download and install version 9.2 or later
- Restart the application after installation and verify the version under Help > About to confirm the patch was applied
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2009-2985 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2009-2985 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.
A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data