Speaking of PDFs, you don’t need to pay for an Adobe subscription or even create an account to get some basic PDF editing functionality. Adobe Acrobat Reader lets you convert files to PDF, add notes, request signatures and more. Tap or click here for tips on using these tools for free. Like any software company, Adobe is vulnerable to hacks, bugs, viruses, malware and more. So the company puts out regular updates and patches for its products. What’s unusual is Adobe’s recent release of 14 updates at once, which also did not follow the regular schedule.

Here’s the backstory

Patch Tuesday is a common practice among tech companies in which they accumulate security updates then release them on the second Tuesday of every month. Microsoft, Oracle and Adobe are among the companies that go along with Patch Tuesday. Microsoft released a large number of fixes on the second Tuesday of October, which also included the first update for Windows 11. Tap or click here for details. This month’s second Tuesday has passed, and November’s is a couple of weeks away. Yet Adobe released a large group of updates for its major products on the last Tuesday of October. “While we strive to release regularly scheduled updates on Patch Tuesday, occasionally these regularly scheduled security updates are released on non-Patch Tuesday dates,” a spokesperson for Adobe told The Register.

Security updates

The 14 security updates apply to the following Adobe products: After Effects, Audition, Bridge, Character Animator, Prelude, Lightroom Classic, Illustrator, Media Encoder, Premiere Pro, Animate, Premiere Elements, InDesign, XMP Toolkit SDK and Photoshop. The update contains more than 80 patches for various vulnerabilities, some of which are listed as critical. Many of the targeted bugs allow arbitrary code execution (ACE). Others can lead to denial-of-service, privilege escalation and memory leaks.

Update your Adobe software now

Whichever Adobe program you are using, you can update it by going to Help > Update. The Creative Cloud desktop app updates your apps automatically as soon as new versions are released. You can also control auto-updates for individual apps by opening the Creative Cloud app and selecting Preferences > Apps.

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