ZDI-26-664: 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
Use-After-Free vulnerability in PDF annotation functionality enables remote code execution upon opening a malicious PDF or visiting a malicious website; CVSS 7.8 indicates high exploitability.
Description
CVE-2026-81986 is a use-after-free vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC's annotation processing. Remote attackers can execute arbitrary code on affected systems when a user opens a crafted PDF or visits a malicious website. The CVSS score of 7.8 indicates high risk. No information available on active wild exploitation or KEV status; ZDI disclosure suggests coordinated release following a patch.
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