CVE-2025-43589
📋 TL;DR
Adobe InDesign has a use-after-free vulnerability that allows arbitrary code execution when a user opens a malicious file. This affects users running vulnerable versions of InDesign on their desktop systems. Successful exploitation gives attackers the same privileges as the current user.
💻 Affected Systems
- Adobe InDesign
📦 What is this software?
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Complete system compromise with attacker gaining full control of the victim's computer, data theft, ransomware deployment, and lateral movement within the network.
Likely Case
Local privilege escalation leading to data exfiltration, installation of persistent malware, or credential harvesting from the compromised user account.
If Mitigated
Limited impact due to application sandboxing, user privilege restrictions, or file execution policies preventing malicious file opening.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires user interaction (opening malicious file). No public exploit code available at time of analysis.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: ID20.2.1 and ID19.5.4
Vendor Advisory: https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/indesign/apsb25-53.html
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Open Adobe Creative Cloud application. 2. Navigate to Updates section. 3. Install InDesign update to version ID20.2.1 or ID19.5.4. 4. Restart InDesign after installation completes.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Restrict InDesign file execution
allConfigure application control policies to prevent execution of untrusted InDesign files
User awareness training
allTrain users to only open InDesign files from trusted sources
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement application whitelisting to block execution of malicious InDesign files
- Use endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions to monitor for suspicious InDesign process behavior
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Open InDesign, go to Help > About InDesign, check if version is ID20.2 or earlier, or ID19.5.3 or earlierCheck Version:
On Windows: wmic product where name="Adobe InDesign" get version
On macOS: /Applications/Adobe\ InDesign\ */Adobe\ InDesign.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe\ InDesign -vVerify Fix Applied:
Verify InDesign version is ID20.2.1 or later, or ID19.5.4 or later📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual InDesign process spawning child processes
- InDesign crashes with memory access violations
- Multiple file open attempts from untrusted sources
Network Indicators:
- Outbound connections from InDesign process to unknown IPs
- DNS requests for suspicious domains from InDesign
SIEM Query:
process_name:"InDesign.exe" AND (process_spawn:* OR network_connection:* OR file_access:*.indd)