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Threats / Adobe / CVE-2008-0655
CVE-2008-0655 · EUVD no mirror located · GCVE no mirror located Verified 2026-06-22

Adobe Acrobat and Reader vulnerability

Adobe Acrobat and Reader contains a design flaw allowing specially crafted files to be printed silently an arbitrary number of times, enabling resource exhaustion and denial of service.

Verdict

Today item — known-exploited.

An attacker can exploit a design flaw in Adobe Acrobat and Reader to trigger silent, repeated printing of malicious documents, causing printer resource exhaustion, paper waste, and potential system degradation without user awareness.

CISA KEV Yes · 2022-06-083EPSS 0.36844 (verify live)4
01

Is it exploitable?

— the evidence, ranked above the score
Reported exploitation
4 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).
CISA KEV ↗Confirmed
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.36844 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Adobe, Acrobat and Reader. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
NVD ↗Reported
02

Who’s exploiting it?

— attribution turns risk into urgency
Attribution 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 board
1

Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1

Attacker
I craft a PDF document with embedded print commands that execute silently when opened.
Business
Uncontrolled printing consumes paper, toner, and printer resources, disrupting operations and increasing supply costs.
2

Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2

Attacker
I distribute the malicious PDF via email or web download to target users.
Business
End users unknowingly trigger repeated printing, reducing productivity and creating support burden for IT teams.
3

Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3

Attacker
I exploit the silent execution to avoid detection while maximizing resource consumption.
Business
Printer infrastructure becomes unavailable for legitimate business use, impacting document workflows and service availability.
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’t

Established (cited)

  • KEV listing (CISA)
  • EPSS probability (FIRST)
  • 4 reported-exploitation source(s)
  • Catalogued by mitre (CNA)
  • Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden

  • No EUVD / GCVE mirror in feed — single-authority dependency for the identifier.
  • EPSS & exposure are time-varying; verify live at the source.
  • Threat-actor attribution not established from feed data — absence of a name is not absence of compromise.
  • No finder/reporter credit recorded in the public CVE entry — the work behind this find is unattributed.
  • Disclosure & credit2
    Catalogued by mitreCNA
    Credited with finding itNo finder named in the public CVE record — the work behind this find is unattributed.