CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2020-24433 — Adobe Acrobat security vulnerability

High CVSS 9.3

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC versions 2020.012.20048 (and earlier), 2020.001.30005 (and earlier) and 2017.011.30175 (and earlier) are affected by a local privilege escalation vulnerability that could enable a user without administrator privileges to delete arbitrary files and potentially execute arbitrary code as SYSTEM. Exploitation of this issue requires an attacker to socially engineer a victim, or the attacker must already have some access to the environment.

Severity
High
CVSS
9.3 (2.0)
Published
2020-11-05
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-284

Affected products

  • adobe / acrobat
  • adobe / acrobat_dc
  • adobe / acrobat_reader
  • adobe / acrobat_reader_dc

Showing 4 representative product identities from 6 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Authorization bypass, IDOR, and cross-tenant access

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

Check exposure

  • Map object and action authorization checks across API, UI, batch, import/export, and background-job paths.
  • Identify tenant, ownership, role, and policy boundaries for affected resources and administrative operations.
  • Use synthetic fixtures to compare intended access matrices without accessing another user's real data.

Remediate safely

  • Enforce server-side authorization at each resource access and state transition using the authenticated principal and trusted tenant context.
  • Scope data queries by tenant and ownership; treat client-supplied identifiers, roles, and policy claims as untrusted.
  • Add deny-by-default policy tests for horizontal and vertical access across every affected transport.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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