Adobe has offered more details of the 'sandbox' security feature it plans to implement to secure its hugely popular but often-attacked PDF Reader software.
First announced last July, the latest description put out by Adobe's security development team makes clear that Reader's new 'protected mode' will be no mere bolt-on. This is starting to look like a ground-up re-design of how the program operates, almost from scratch.
The new Reader design will see core and risky PDF functions such as font rendering, Javascript execution, 3D rendering and image parsing happen within the confines of the application itself, isolating these from the privileges of the operating system.
This effectively relegates Reader to a new rung of privilege below that if the system user, which stops the application simply accessing key parts of the OS such as the Registry or file system as it likes. Instead all such calls will have to go through a trusted broker process if they want to communicate beyond the sandbox.
More: http://www.pcworld.com/article/207359/
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First announced last July, the latest description put out by Adobe's security development team makes clear that Reader's new 'protected mode' will be no mere bolt-on. This is starting to look like a ground-up re-design of how the program operates, almost from scratch.
The new Reader design will see core and risky PDF functions such as font rendering, Javascript execution, 3D rendering and image parsing happen within the confines of the application itself, isolating these from the privileges of the operating system.
This effectively relegates Reader to a new rung of privilege below that if the system user, which stops the application simply accessing key parts of the OS such as the Registry or file system as it likes. Instead all such calls will have to go through a trusted broker process if they want to communicate beyond the sandbox.
More: http://www.pcworld.com/article/207359/
