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
This week CW Live presents a case study on how to poison the notorious Storm botnet . Plus we take a look at Cisco's plans for Ironport. - +
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.
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Wireless LANs: Is my enterprise at risk?
Achieve an overall understanding of the risks associated with wireless LANs. Discover their inherent properties, as well as what makes them different from wired networks. Read on to uncover a list of recently published articles on real-life breaches and incidents illustrating the need for proactive measures to mitigate wireless security risks.
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