Threats / Adobe / CVE-2009-1862
CVE-2009-1862
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-09-19
Adobe Acrobat and Reader, Flash Player vulnerability
CVE-2009-1862 is a code execution vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat, Reader, and Flash Player that allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or trigger denial-of-service conditions.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
This vulnerability enables remote code execution through improper input handling. Active exploitation in the wild combined with high EPSS score indicates significant risk to systems running affected Adobe products without timely patching.
CISA KEV Yes · 2022-06-084EPSS 0.24921 (verify live)5CVSS 7.8 (CISA)3CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: total3
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
5 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-06-08).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.24921 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 7.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) · Affected: Adobe, Acrobat and Reader, Flash Player. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CISA-assigned via the ADP container (CVE.org), version 3.1; the CNA left no metrics, so CISA's own score is used ahead of NVD.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-94 Code Injection — weakness family: Injection.CWE assignment from the public NVD record (may be stale); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Technical Impact: totalCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog 4703 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I craft a malicious PDF or Flash file embedding code that exploits the input validation flaw.
Business
End users receive compromised documents that execute attacker code upon opening, leading to system compromise and potential data theft.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I distribute the weaponized file via email or web hosting to maximize exposure across target organizations.
Business
Enterprise security teams face widespread infection vectors, requiring emergency patching and incident response across multiple endpoints.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I establish persistent access or deploy secondary payloads once code execution is achieved on victim systems.
Business
Organizations experience extended dwell time, lateral movement risk, and potential compromise of sensitive intellectual property or customer data.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05
Coverage & confidence
— what we know, and what we don’tEstablished (cited)
Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden
Disclosure & credit2
Catalogued by mitreCNA
Credited with finding itWill Dormann of CERT/CCfinderWill Drewry of Google Inc.finderAnibal Sacco of the CORE IMPACT Exploit Writing Team (EWT) at Core Security TechnologiesfinderJ. David Hester of LCG Systems National Institutes of Healthfinder
Found an error? Propose a correction.
A correction is a cited counter-claim — it must cite a source,
gets reviewed by a second human, and is never auto-applied. See the
correction convention and our identity
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