CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2018-18689 — Avanquest Expert Pdf Ultimate security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.3

The Portable Document Format (PDF) specification does not provide any information regarding the concrete procedure of how to validate signatures. Consequently, a Signature Wrapping vulnerability exists in multiple products. An attacker can use /ByteRange and xref manipulations that are not detected by the signature-validation logic. This affects Foxit Reader before 9.4 and PhantomPDF before 8.3.9 and 9.x before 9.4. It also affects eXpert PDF 12 Ultimate, Expert PDF Reader, Nitro Pro, Nitro Reader, PDF Architect 6, PDF Editor 6 Pro, PDF Experte 9 Ultimate, PDFelement6 Pro, PDF Studio Viewer 2018, PDF Studio Pro, PDF-XChange Editor and Viewer, Perfect PDF 10 Premium, Perfect PDF Reader, Soda PDF, and Soda PDF Desktop.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.3 (3.1)
Published
2021-01-07
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-347

Affected products

  • avanquest / expert_pdf_ultimate / 12.0.20
  • avanquest / pdf_experte_ultimate / 9.0.270
  • foxitsoftware / foxit_reader / 9.1.0
  • foxitsoftware / foxit_reader / 9.2.0.9297
  • foxitsoftware / foxit_reader / 9.3.0.10826
  • gonitro / nitro_pro / 11.0.3.173

Showing 6 representative product identities from 39 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

General vulnerability remediation

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Confirm the affected component, deployment paths, reachable interfaces, and enabled features from inventories and configuration, without probing production destructively.
  • Compare the advisory's affected conditions with the repository lockfiles, build manifests, artifacts, and runtime inventory.
  • Identify data sensitivity, trust boundaries, and privilege level for every confirmed affected deployment.

Remediate safely

  • Apply a vendor-supported fix or remove the affected component or feature; record the selected change and its source in the repository.
  • Update direct and transitive dependency locks, generated artifacts, deployment manifests, and asset inventories together.
  • Add a regression test for the documented unsafe condition using inert inputs and preserve rollback instructions.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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