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Actively exploited · Published Oct 13, 2009 · Assigned by adobe

CVE-2009-3459

High 8.8 Exploited

In plain English

A high-severity heap buffer overflow in Acrobat and Reader from Adobe. Attackers are actively exploiting it in the wild (listed by CISA on May 20, 2026). The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 86.5% (higher than 99.7% of all known vulnerabilities). Ready-made attack tooling exists: Metasploit. Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)8.8High
Exploit odds (30 days)86.5%top 0.3% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildYesCISA KEV since May 20, 2026
Attack tooling1Metasploit

CISA guidance

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Federal agencies must remediate by Jun 3, 2026.

Official description

Heap-based buffer overflow in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 7.x before 7.1.4, 8.x before 8.1.7, and 9.x before 9.2 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted PDF file that triggers memory corruption, as exploited in the wild in October 2009. NOTE: some of these details are obtained from third party information.

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
n/a n/a n/a

Weakness: CWE-122 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References