dbcve.org
IllustratorApplication · Adobe

CVE-2025-27170

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-03-11
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 28.7.5 / 29.3 or later.
See remediation →
58/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
No privileges

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
Illustrator versions 29.2.1, 28.7.4 and earlier are affected by a NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability that could result in an application denial-of-service. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to crash the application, leading to a denial of service condition. Exploitation of this issue requires user interaction in that a victim must open a malicious file.

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 · high confidence

Adobe Illustrator contains a NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in versions 29.2.1, 28.7.4 and earlier. When a user opens a specially crafted malicious file, the application attempts to dereference a NULL pointer, causing a crash and resulting in denial of service.

MitigationApply the vendor-provided Adobe security update to Illustrator to address this vulnerability. Until the patch is applied, advise users not to open files from untrusted sources.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

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
IllustratorApplication
Affected:>= 28.0, < 28.7.5>= 29.0, < 29.3

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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Locate Adobe Illustrator installation
    On Windows, check Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator [Version] for the installation folder. On macOS, check /Applications/Adobe Illustrator [Version].app
    Affected if Adobe Illustrator is installed on the system
  2. Find installed version number
    Open Illustrator, go to Help > About Adobe Illustrator (Windows) or Illustrator > About Adobe Illustrator (macOS). Alternatively, right-click the executable and view Properties > Details, or use the command: msiexec /q /i [install_path] | findstr DisplayVersion on Windows
    Affected if Version number is displayed
  3. Compare version to affected ranges
    Check if your installed version is 28.0 through 28.7.4, or 29.0 through 29.2.1. Versions 28.7.5 and later, or 29.3 and later, are not affected
    Affected if Version falls within 28.0-28.7.4 or 29.0-29.2.1 range - these are vulnerable
  4. Identify file opening behavior
    Note that the vulnerability is triggered when a user opens a specially crafted .ai or other supported file format. The crash occurs during file parsing
    Affected if Users routinely open files from external or untrusted sources without verification

If Adobe Illustrator version is 28.0-28.7.4 or 29.0-29.2.1 AND users may open files from untrusted sources, the environment is vulnerable to this denial of service flaw.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 28.7.5 / 29.3 or later
Fixed in 28.7.529.3
Interim mitigation

Apply the vendor-provided Adobe security update to Illustrator to address this vulnerability. Until the patch is applied, advise users not to open files from untrusted sources.

Recommended fix High confidence

Illustrator 28.7.5 or Illustrator 29.3 (depending on your release track)

  1. 1. Close Adobe Illustrator if it is currently running
  2. 2. Open Adobe Creative Cloud desktop application
  3. 3. Navigate to the 'Apps' tab
  4. 4. Find Adobe Illustrator in the list of installed apps
  5. 5. Click the 'Update' button next to Illustrator if an update is available
  6. 6. Alternatively, manually download the update from helpx.adobe.com or the Adobe Creative Cloud desktop app
  7. 7. Restart Illustrator after the update completes
  8. 8. Verify the installed version by going to Help > About Adobe Illustrator

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

Fix this in Illustrator Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
7.0 hours of engineering $1,240
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,984.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-27170 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

Get it on GitHub Scan in the browser

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-2025-27170 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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.

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