Acrobat DcApplication · Adobe

CVE-2019-8196

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2019-10-17
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 15.006.30504 / 17.011.30150 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

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 · unedited
Adobe Acrobat and Reader versions , 2019.012.20040 and earlier, 2017.011.30148 and earlier, 2017.011.30148 and earlier, 2015.006.30503 and earlier, and 2015.006.30503 and earlier have an untrusted pointer dereference vulnerability. Successful exploitation could lead to arbitrary code execution .

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 analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-119

The program reads or writes outside the bounds of an allocated buffer, corrupting adjacent memory. With crafted input an attacker can overwrite control data and, with effort, redirect execution to their own code. Remediation ranges from bounds checking and safe library functions to compiler mitigations, usually alongside a careful audit of the surrounding code.

General guidance for the memory buffer bounds error 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
Acrobat DcApplication
Affected:>= 15.006.30060, < 15.006.30504>= 15.008.20082, < 19.021.20047>= 17.011.30059, < 17.011.30150
Acrobat Reader DcApplication
Affected:>= 15.006.30060, < 15.006.30504>= 15.008.20082, < 19.021.20047>= 17.011.30059, < 17.011.30150

CVSS 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
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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 · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 15.006.30504 / 17.011.30150 / 19.021.20047 or later
Fixed in 15.006.3050417.011.3015019.021.20047
Vendor patch helpx.adobe.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

Adobe Acrobat/Reader DC Continuous track version 19.021.20047 or later (or Classic track version 17.011.30150/15.006.30504 as appropriate)

  1. 1. Close all instances of Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Acrobat Reader DC
  2. 2. Back up any critical PDF documents as a precaution
  3. 3. Download the latest version of Adobe Acrobat DC or Adobe Acrobat Reader DC from the official Adobe website (https://get.adobe.com/reader or https://get.adobe.com/acrobat)
  4. 4. Run the installer and follow the on-screen prompts to complete the installation
  5. 5. After installation, verify the version by opening Acrobat/Reader and navigating to Help > About Adobe Acrobat/Reader DC
  6. 6. Confirm the installed version matches or exceeds the minimum fixed version (19.021.20047 for the Continuous track)
Caveat Standard minor version upgrade - review Adobe release notes for any changes to functionality

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $3,550. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2019-8196 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2019-8196 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

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.

What belongs here
  • 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