To prevent an attack of this nature there are simple instructions near the bottom of that article as follows.
Users can also turn off this functionality in the Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat Preferences by selecting > Edit > Preferences > Categories > Trust Manager > PDF File Attachments and clearing (unchecking) the box “Allow opening of non-PDF file attachments with external applications”
If you read that article fully it says that Foxit doesn’t even give a warning before saving the malware to disc. 😯
This could be somewhat confusing to users, and not really knowing what is happening, they may just click save (It appears as if they are just saving a PDF file after all). Users of Foxit PDF reader will get no warning and the attachment will be saved to the users Documents folder
It refers to Royal Mail Delivery pdfs….? Is that the only instance or is that given as an example. I only get bills from Royal Mail so I sure as hell don’t want them grabbing me by the malwares as well….
This interweb virus stuff is beyond me, way above my head, but meanwhile, just to be on the safe side, I’m going to nail my letterbox shut in case Royal Mail stuff viruses through that way? 💡
It looks as though that has been the first attempt to run the Zeus malware bot using .PDF files that has been seen in the wild.
It does appear from THIS that the very latest (April) release of Foxit will give you a warning first and has the means to disable running the exe file.