In a number of Scams of the day since October 5th, I have been warning you about problems stemming from the hacking of Adobe, maker of Adobe Acrobat, ColdFusion, ColdFusion Builder and Adobe Photoshop and the problem keeps getting worse.  Where originally Adobe believed that personal data on 2.9 million of its customers was stolen, now the company admits that the total number of people whose information was taken is greater than 38 million.  But it gets worse.  Certainly for those 38 million people who are in danger of identity theft because of this data breach, the news is bad enough, but for the rest of us the news is even more dire.  Along with personal information, the hackers also stole the source code to Adobe Acrobat, Cold Fusion and ColdFusion Builder.  The theft of the source code for ColdFusion is of particular concern because this software is used in the creation of websites and mobile apps by businesses.  Handing over the source code will make it easier for hackers to expose already existing vulnerabilities in the software and to discover new ones.  This in turn will make it easier for hackers to install malware in websites and mobile apps created using this software, which will make it more likely that more people will become at risk of identity theft and other scams.

TIPS

It is impossible to avoid websites and apps that use Adobe ColdFusion, but it is critical that you protect yourself as best you can by making sure that your firewall, anti-virus software and anti-malware security programs are installed and kept up to date with the latest patches.  In fact, the National White Collar Crime Center was hacked through an exploited flaw in Adobe’s ColdFusion used to create its website.  Unfortunately, the National White Collar Crime Center did not have the latest Adobe security patch installed which would have prevented this particular attack. It is critical to keep all of your software including your security software up to date with the latest patches.  Here at Scamicide we regularly provide you with links to updates of many of the security patches to keep yourself as safe as possible.