How severe is CVE-2009-3459?

CVE-2009-3459 has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 8.8 (HIGH). EPSS estimates a 86.6% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days. It is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

CVE-2009-3459: Adobe Acrobat and Reader Heap-Based Buffer Overflow

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities

Adobe Acrobat and Reader Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Vulnerability is confirmed as actively exploited and is listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Added to KEV

2026-05-20

Remediation due

2026-06-03

Required action
Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

CISA notes
https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2009/10/13/adobe-reader-and-acrobat-vulnerabilities ; https://web.archive.org/web/20120324170253/http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb09-15.html#:~:text=CVE%2D2009%2D3459).-,NOTE%3A,-There%20are%20reports ; https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2009-3459

Description

Heap-based buffer overflow in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 7.x before 7.1.4, 8.x before 8.1.7, and 9.x before 9.2 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted PDF file that triggers memory corruption, as exploited in the wild in October 2009. NOTE: some of these details are obtained from third party information.

Severity

CVSS 3.1 · CISA8.8 HIGH

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

SSVC · CISA-ADP

Exploitationactive

Automatableno

Technical impacttotal

Exploitation Context

as of October 14, 2026

All KEV statistics→

CISA added CVE-2009-3459 to the KEV catalog 6,063 days after its CVE record was published. The median for entries added in 2026 so far is 15 days.
It is one of 82 Adobe entries in the CISA KEV catalog, and one of 6 added in 2026.
Its current EPSS score (86.6%) is higher than that of 69% of CISA KEV entries.

Affected Products

Vendor	Product	Affected versions
-	-	n/a

References

12 Links

Third-party advisories

Vulnerability databases

Other references

Record Details

Published

2009-10-13

Last updated

2026-05-21

Assigner (CNA)

adobe

Credited to

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CVE record data © The MITRE Corporation, used under the CVE Terms of Use. Exploited-in-the-wild data from the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (CC0). Exploit prediction scores by FIRST EPSS (first.org/epss). This site is not endorsed or certified by MITRE, NVD, CISA, or FIRST.