HTC Touch2: Secunia reports a highly critical 0-day vulnerability in the HTC Touch2 VideoPlayer. No patch is available at this time. Users are advised to not open files from untrusted sources.

 For Your IT Department

RSA: RSA has announced updates patching 2 vulnerabilities, one of them highly critical. IT Departments can get more information on these updates here.

Important Unpatched Vulnerabilities

Adobe Flash: The highly critical vulnerability we reported in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, December 11 remains unpatched. We recommend users disable the Flash player in their browsers.

Photoshop Elements: Adobe versions 1 – 8 contain a highly critical unpatched vulnerability. The vulnerability is confirmed in version 8.0 20090905.r.605812 and Adobe reports that the vulnerability affects versions 8.0 and earlier. We first alerted readers to this vulnerability in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, October 9, 2011.

Adobe Reader and Acrobat: While Adobe has released Adobe Reader 9.4.7 and Adobe Acrobat 9.4.7 to address the extremely critical vulnerability we reported in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, December 11, it doesn’t plan to update Reader X and Acrobat X until its next quarterly update scheduled for January 10, 2012. Until then the vulnerability still remains in Reader X and Acrobat X. Adobe has stated that other security technology in these products makes it more difficult to successfully exploit the vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, we continue to recommend users exercise extreme caution, opening PDF files only from trusted sources. Users may also want to consider alternative PDF readers such as Foxit, PDF-Xchange Viewer or Nitro PDF. See our Cyber Security News of the Week for more information on this vulnerability.

ACDSee Photo: Several highly critical vulnerabilities have been identified in various ACDSee photo products. Vulnerabilities have been identified in FotoSlate, Photo Editor 2008, and Picture Frame Manager. No patches are available at this time. Readers should refrain from using ACDSee to open untrusted files. We first alerted readers to this vulnerability in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, June 12. We alerted readers to a second vulnerability in FotoSlate in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, September 18.

ACD Systems Canvas CorelDRAW: A highly critical vulnerability has been found in ACD Systems Canvas which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user’s system. Users should not view untrusted CDR files. Readers should refrain from opening untrusted files in ACD Systems Canvas. We first alerted readers to this vulnerability in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, July 31.

Firefox version 7 and Thunderbird version 7: As we reported in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, November 13, 2011, multiple unpatched security vulnerabilities, several of them highly critical, have been reported in version 7 of Firefox and Mozilla. Mozilla recommends users upgrade to version 8.

HTC Mobile Devices: The security vulnerability in the default Twitter application (Peep) in HTC products remain unpatched. Readers should refrain from using the default Twitter application (Peep). We first alerted readers to this vulnerability in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, February 11.

Microsoft Office Publisher 2007: A moderately critical vulnerability has been reported in Microsoft Office Publisher. No patch is available at this time. Readers are advised to not use content from untrusted sources. We first alerted readers to this vulnerability in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, October 23, 2011.

Microsoft Windows XP: A less-critical security vulnerability has been found in Windows XP which can be exploited by malicious, local users to disclose potentially sensitive information or cause a DoS (Denial of Service). No patch is available at this time. We first alerted readers to this vulnerability in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, August 7.

Microsoft Word: A highly critical vulnerability has been found in Microsoft Word XP and 2002. No patch is available at this time. Readers should refrain from opening untrusted files in these earlier versions of Word. We first alerted readers to this vulnerability in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, June 19.

Microsoft Office for Mac: A highly critical vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft Office for the Mac which can be exploited by cyber criminals to take control of a user’s computer. Security updates are currently unavailable. Readers should refrain from opening untrusted files in Office. We first alerted readers to this vulnerability in Weekend Vulnerability & Patch Report, May 13, 2011.

Microsoft Reader: The highly critical vulnerability in Microsoft Reader, versions 2.x, remains unpatched.  Readers should refrain from opening untrusted files in Reader. We first alerted readers to this vulnerability in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, April 15.

Multiple Browser Vulnerabilities: The non-critical vulnerability we reported in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, December 11 remains unpatched. Affected web browsers include Internet Explorer, Opera, Google Chrome and Firefox. We have no information at this time whether other browsers are affected. The vulnerability can be exploited by a malicious website to enumerate other sites visited by the user. Users may want to enable”Private Browsing” when visiting untrusted websites.

PDF-Pro: Several highly critical vulnerabilities in PDF-Pro, a popular alternative to Adobe Acrobat, remain unpatched. Readers should refrain from opening untrusted files in PDF-Pro. We first alerted readers to this vulnerability in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, March 4.

Quick View Plus CorelDRAW: A highly critical vulnerability has been found in Quick View Plus which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user’s system. Users should not view untrusted CDR files in Quick View Plus. We first alerted readers to this vulnerability in Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report, July 31.

If you are responsible for keeping your computer secure, our weekly report is for you. We strongly urge you to take action to keep your workstation secure.

If someone else is responsible for keeping your computer secure, protect it by forwarding our Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report to them and following up to make sure your computer has been patched.

Vulnerability management is a key element of cyber security management. Cyber criminals take over user computers by writing computer programs that “exploit” vulnerabilities in operating systems (Windows, Apple OS, etc) and application programs (Adobe Acrobat, Office, Flash, Java, etc). When software companies find a vulnerability, they usually issue an update patch to fix the code running in their customer’s computers.

Citadel publishes our Weekend Vulnerability and Patch Report to alert readers to some of the week’s important updates and vulnerabilities. Our focus is on software typically found in the small or home office (SOHO) or that users are likely to have on their home computer. The report is not intended to be a thorough listing of updates and vulnerabilities.