Research in Motion has warned users and corporate administrators of a critical vulnerability in a component of its BlackBerry Enterprise Server that could be used to hack their company's computers.
The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), part of the Department of Homeland Security, also posted an alert Wednesday after RIM issued two security advisories.
A patch is not available, but RIM said the problem had been "escalated internally to our development team."
A bug in the PDF distiller component of the BlackBerry Attachment Service, which runs on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), affects how the popular Adobe document format is processed on the server, said RIM in one of the advisories.
The server running BES, not individual BlackBerry devices, is at risk, although an attack would involve a BlackBerry.
Malicious PDFs attached to e-mail messages could "cause arbitrary code to execute on the computer that the BlackBerry Attachment Service runs on," the RIM warning said. "If a BlackBerry smart phone user on a BlackBerry Enterprise Server opens and views the specially crafted PDF file attachment on the BlackBerry smart phone, the arbitrary code execution could compromise the computer."
RIM posted workaround instructions for enterprise administrators that would prevent an attack by blocking PDF processing on a BES system.
A companion RIM security advisory urged BlackBerry users to upgrade to version 1.0 Service Pack 1 (1.0.1) bundle 36 or later of the BlackBerry Unite software.
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Computerworld Live Podcast #97: The Future of Enterprise Networking 25/07/2008 09:45:36
This week CW Live chats with Mark Thompson, global sales and marketing manager for HP ProCurve, on the future of the enterprise networking. Mark discusses the trends we can expect to see in the near future and how the right infrastructure can ensure your enterprise network is secure. - +
Computerworld Live Podcast #96: Security at the Edge 11/06/2008 09:22:22
CW Live speaks with Amol Mitra, HP ProCurve Director of Marketing for Asia Pacific and Japan. Today's topic: how enterprises are starting to shift away from simply controlling security via server logins, firewalls and moving to more adaptive security frameworks. - +
Data Management Edition #10: Multi-Petascale Systems 02/05/2008 09:12:33
This week we look at sustainability and the development of multicore technologies to build multi-petascale systems. - +
IT Security Edition #11: How to poison the Storm botnet 01/05/2008 08:51:55
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IT Security Edition #10: Cyber-battles fought and won 24/04/2008 11:09:47
Vendors bow to end user pressure to improve product security, and we take a look at the latest concepts shaping the cyber-battlefield of the future.
Fortinet November Threatscape Report Shows Calm Before Holiday Storm 2008-12-05 16:00:00+11
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Delivering the Power of Choice with Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Join Ed Thompson, Research VP, featured analyst firm, Gartner, Inc., and Brad Wilson, General Manager CRM Microsoft Dynamics, for a new webcast, Delivering the Power of Choice with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, available now. Our panel will break down the best practices for getting the most out of CRM and you'll learn key recommendations you can implement in your organization. Additionally, you'll also hear Microsoft's vision for CRM.
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