CVE-2025-54255 is a vulnerability identified in multiple versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader, specifically versions 24.001.30254, 20.005.30774, 25.001.20672, and earlier. The vulnerability is classified under CWE-657, which refers to a Violation of Secure Design Principles. This type of weakness typically involves flaws in the architectural or design aspects of software that undermine security controls. In this case, the vulnerability allows for a security feature bypass, meaning that certain built-in protections within Acrobat Reader can be circumvented by an attacker. Notably, exploitation of this vulnerability does not require any user interaction, which increases the risk as it can be triggered without the victim performing any action such as opening a malicious file or clicking a link. The CVSS v3.1 base score is 4.0, indicating a medium severity level. The vector string (AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N) reveals that the attack requires local access (AV:L), has low attack complexity (AC:L), does not require privileges (PR:N), and no user interaction (UI:N). The impact affects integrity (I:L) but not confidentiality or availability. There are no known exploits in the wild at the time of publication, and no patches have been linked yet. The vulnerability’s root cause is a design flaw rather than a coding error, which may complicate mitigation and patching efforts. Given that Acrobat Reader is widely used for viewing and managing PDF documents, this vulnerability could be leveraged to bypass security features that protect document integrity or enforce security policies within the application environment.

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-54255 could be significant, especially in sectors that heavily rely on Adobe Acrobat Reader for document handling, such as legal, financial, government, and healthcare institutions. The ability to bypass security features without user interaction means that an attacker with local access could manipulate or tamper with PDF documents or related security controls, potentially leading to unauthorized modifications or the undermining of document authenticity. Although the vulnerability does not directly compromise confidentiality or availability, the integrity impact could facilitate further attacks or fraud, such as document forgery or unauthorized changes to sensitive information. The local access requirement somewhat limits remote exploitation, but insider threats or attackers who gain initial foothold on a system could exploit this vulnerability to escalate their capabilities. The absence of required privileges and user interaction lowers the barrier for exploitation once local access is obtained. European organizations must consider this vulnerability in their risk assessments, particularly where Acrobat Reader is deployed on endpoints with sensitive document workflows or regulatory compliance requirements.

Given the design nature of the vulnerability and the lack of available patches, European organizations should implement several targeted mitigations: 1) Restrict local access to systems running vulnerable versions of Acrobat Reader by enforcing strict access controls and endpoint security policies. 2) Employ application whitelisting and privilege restrictions to limit the ability of untrusted users or processes to execute or manipulate Acrobat Reader instances. 3) Monitor and audit usage of Acrobat Reader for unusual behaviors or attempts to bypass security features, leveraging endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools. 4) Where possible, upgrade to the latest versions of Acrobat Reader once patches are released, or consider alternative PDF readers with robust security postures in the interim. 5) Educate users and administrators about the risks of local access exploitation and enforce strong physical and network security controls to prevent unauthorized local access. 6) Implement document integrity verification processes outside of Acrobat Reader to detect unauthorized modifications, such as digital signatures or hash verification mechanisms. These mitigations go beyond generic advice by focusing on controlling local access, monitoring application behavior, and supplementing Acrobat Reader’s security with external integrity checks.