ZDI-26-661: Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Annotation Use-After-Free Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Admiralty grading (A–F · 1–6)
Source reliability
- A Completely reliable
- B Usually reliable
- C Fairly reliable
- D Not usually reliable
- E Unreliable
- F Cannot be judged
Information credibility
- 1 Confirmed
- 2 Probably true
- 3 Possibly true
- 4 Doubtful
- 5 Improbable
- 6 Cannot be judged
NATO Admiralty (AJP-2.1) grades confidence, independent of the risk score. Cross-source corroboration isn't tracked for non-CVE news, so single-source items are capped at a lower credibility number; a low number does not imply low quality.
Key metrics
- CVSS
- 7.8
- EPSS
- 0%
Key insight
A use-after-free vulnerability enables remote code execution in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC with user interaction, presenting direct risk to organizations using this PDF reader.
Description
CVE-2026-81985 is a use-after-free condition in the annotation functionality of Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, receiving a CVSS score of 7.8. A remote attacker can execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the affected user via a malicious PDF file or webpage. Exploitation requires user interaction, such as opening a crafted file or visiting a malicious website. The Zero Day Initiative has publicly disclosed this vulnerability.
Risk score
- cvss base
- 78.00
- kev bonus
- 0.00
- epss bonus
- 0.00
- poc bonus
- 15.00
- raw before weight
- 93.00
- industry weight
- 1.21
- freshness factor
- 1.00
- exploitability factor
- 1.00
- days old
- 0.00
- vendor mismatch penalty
- 0.00
Path: operational