Who’s Afraid of PDF?  Announcing the PDFVue Add-on for Firefox

Plano, TX (March, 3rd 2009) –The media and PDF blogosphere last week reported a vulnerability in Adobe Reader that allows attackers to use malicious PDF’s to take over a user’s machine by using a buffer overflow exploit .  Users have been searching for an easy and secure solution, and simply changing browsers is not a remedy as this exploit is both browser and platform independent.  To make matters worse, Adobe does not have a software patch to fix the security hole and does not anticipate it will be available until March 11th.

Adobe’s recommendation until the patch is released is to use caution when opening PDF’s and disable JavaScript within Adobe Reader.  However, even Adobe notes that “disabling JavaScript does not eliminate all risk.” Attacks through malicious PDFs are quickly growing, with estimates that 10% of all malicious web links  on the Internet last quarter were in PDF’s.  With these recent major exploits, attackers are clearly focusing on finding ways to exploit vulnerable PDF viewers. 

In response to PDF’s increasing exposure to security risks, Docudesk has created PDFVue and the PDFVue Firefox plugin allowing users to open PDF’s risk free of any malicious content. Unlike other PDF Add-on’s, the PDFVue Add-on for Firefox does not launch Adobe Reader to view the PDF, rather it utilizes Docudesk’s PDFVue web service to remotely load and display the PDF as HTML.

Users will find more in PDFVue than just a PDF reader, it is also the ideal web application for online PDF annotating, sharing and collaborating.  With the PDFVue plugin, PDF’s are rendered on our secure, collocated servers, and served back seamlessly in the browser.  Now, there is no need to be afraid of PDFs!

The benefits to the PDFVue plugin include:

• No JavaScript – your machine can’t be compromised by malicious code in a PDF.

• Free and no registration required!

• Rendering PDF’s on our servers means your computer is kept safe.

• We take care of updates automatically – so you don’t have to worry about it.

• Unlike other PDF plugins that can freeze your browser with large PDF’s, with PDFVue, you don’t have to wait for the entire PDF to load – you can start viewing immediately.

• PDFVue keeps you safe by catching all PDF’s – even if you open the PDF in a new tab, type in the URL directly, or if it is re-directed from a site such as TinyURL.

• PDFVue isn’t just a viewer – you can markup and annotate any PDF you view, and save a local copy for yourself.

• The PDFVue plugin is fully compatible with other firefox PDF plugins – and it is easily toggled on or off.

• PDFVue retains hyperlinks within the PDF’s, and will not interrupt save-as dialogues if you are trying to save the PDF to your computer.

Click to download the PDFVue plugin from Firefox (login required while the Add-on is in the sandbox). Alternatively, you can get it directly from us here. And if you don’t have Firefox yet, you can get it here. 

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