# CVE-2009-2979: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can cause a denial of service in Adobe Reader by tricking users into opening a crafted document with malicious XMP-XML entity expansion.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.3 (`AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 19 Oct 2009
- **Updated:** 7 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-j7rw-94xq-mrc3

## What is CVE-2009-2979?

CVE-2009-2979 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat, published on 19 Oct 2009. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x before 9.2, 8.x before 8.1.7, and possibly 7.x through 7.1.4 do not properly perform XMP-XML entity expansion, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service via a crafted document.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2009-2979?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Acrobat Reader.

## How do I fix CVE-2009-2979?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2009-2979 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2009-2979 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat

- [CVE-2021-28550](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-28550/): Adobe Acrobat and Reader Use-After-Free (critical 9.6, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2021-21017](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-21017/): Adobe Acrobat and Reader Heap-based Buffer Overflow (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2014-0546](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2014-0546/): Adobe Reader and Acrobat Sandbox Bypass (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2014-0496](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2014-0496/): Adobe Reader and Acrobat Use-After-Free (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-3346](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-3346/): Adobe Reader and Acrobat Memory Corruption (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2009-2979 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2009-2979 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat, published on 19 Oct 2009. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2009-2979 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Adobe Acrobat. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-2979/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-2979/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-2979
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2009-2979
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2009-2979

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-2979/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.