Johannesburg, 13 Aug 2020
In line with the Adobe Support Life Cycle Policy, end of product and technical support for Adobe Acrobat 2015 and Adobe Reader 2015 officially ended on 7 July 2020. What does this mean and what are the risks of continued usage? Let’s take a look below.
End of support means your organisation will no longer get product or security updates, leaving your organisation vulnerable to malware and other attacks.This policy affects product and security updates for all derivatives of a product or product version, including localised versions, minor upgrades, operating systems, dot and double-dot releases, and connector products.
By updating to the latest version of Adobe Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader DC, customers benefit from the latest functional enhancements, operating system support and improved security measures. Keeping your software up to date helps protect your systems against those potential security risks.
Why upgrade to Adobe Acrobat DC subscription?
Adobe has been the leader in secure digital documents for over 25 years. By combining Adobe Acrobat desktop software with premium features in the Acrobat Reader mobile app and Adobe Document Cloud services, Acrobat DC delivers the most complete PDF solution for today’s multi-device, cloud-connected workforce.
Organisations are looking to engage in a digital transformation, moving manual and paper-based processes into comprehensive digital capabilities. This means departments across organisations are seeking solutions to help increase operational efficiency, reduce the risks associated with human error, and create intuitive end-to-end digital experiences.
Increased efficiencies and cost savings with Acrobat DC
Acrobat DC enables IT efficiencies with easier PDF software administration, including licence management, deployments, updates and upgrades. Employees also save time by making document-intensive processes quicker and more seamless using tools to organise PDFs and improve end-to-end document workflows. And now we have the stats to prove it.
Forrester Research completed a third-party benchmark study measuring the effectiveness and total economic impact of Acrobat DC.
With an Acrobat DC subscription through the Adobe Value Incentive Plan (VIP), your organisation can:
Deploy and manage with ease – Deploy apps and updates centrally or let users self-install. Assign, reassign, remove and track licences with just a few clicks in the intuitive, Web-based admin console. And deliver secure remote access to Acrobat DC with virtualisation support for named user licensing.
Keep software up to date – Get access to the latest innovations with new features and security updates as soon as they’re available to deploy on your own schedule, at no additional charge.
Maximise your Microsoft investments – Increase team productivity and get more out of your Microsoft investment by adding time-saving PDF tools to Office 365. With Acrobat DC, teams can create high-quality, password-protected PDF files that preserve fonts, formatting and layouts directly from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Teams can also convert PDFs to editable Word, Excel, PowerPoint and RTF files, as well as create, combine and organise PDFs directly from SharePoint and One Drive. And you can enable users to open PDFs protected by Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) solutions.
Empower team productivity anywhere – Give your organisation access to files and essential PDF tools on their desktop, mobile device or Web browser. Teams never know when work needs to happen, so empower them to stay connected and productive whenever and wherever.
Receive consolidated purchasing and volume discounts – Save big with volume discounts, extend your licence term up to three years to keep your budget predictable, and add more licences at the discounted price through VIP. Plus manage all your Adobe subscriptions conveniently in one VIP agreement.
Get expert help when you need it – Count on advanced 24x7 technical support, on-boarding help, and 1:1 learning sessions with an Adobe product expert to get you up and running fast, and help you get the most out of Acrobat DC.
Security features
At Adobe, the security of your digital experience is taken very seriously. Security practices are deeply ingrained into the internal software development, operations processes and tools. These practices are strictly followed by cross-functional teams to help prevent, detect and respond to incidents in an expedient manner. Adobe is always up to date with the latest threats and vulnerabilities through collaborative work with partners, leading researchers, security research institutions and other industry organisations.
Redaction
Adobe Acrobat DC includes a set of redaction tools that help customers protect sensitive or confidential information, including permanent deletion of both text and graphic images in a document before distribution. In addition, users can search and redact content based on patterns, such as phone numbers, credit card numbers and e-mail addresses.
File sharing
All Document Cloud files stored in the cloud are automatically labeled “private”, which means the content is only visible to the end user who uploaded it. An end-user must take explicit actions to share that content, or it will remain private. All Document Cloud content sharing is completed by sending a link to the Document Cloud content to the recipient(s) via e-mail, text or any collaboration software.
Asset settings and sharing restrictions
Asset settings give an organisation control over how employees share assets outside the organisation. The IT administrator can select a restrictive setting that limits employees from using specific sharing features within Document Cloud, including restricting invitation-based sharing to recipients in the claimed, trusted, and whitelisted domains.
Protected Mode in Acrobat Reader DC
To help protect customers from malicious code that attempts to use the PDF format to write to or read from a computer’s file system, Adobe delivers an implementation of Sandboxing technology called Protected Mode, which was introduced in Adobe Reader X. Sandboxing is a security method that creates a confined execution environment in which to run programs with low rights or privileges. Sandboxes help protect users' systems from being harmed by untrusted documents that contain executable code. In the context of Acrobat Reader DC, the untrusted content would be any PDF file and the process that it might invoke. Acrobat Reader DC treats all PDF files as potentially corrupt and confines all processing that the PDF file invokes to the sandbox.
Acrobat Reader DC Protected Mode helps defend against attackers attempting to install malware on a computer system, which supports organisations' efforts to prevent malicious actors from accessing and extracting sensitive data and intellectual property from their networks. Protected Mode is enabled by default whenever a user launches Acrobat Reader DC and limits the level of access granted to the program, safeguarding systems running Microsoft Windows from malicious PDF files that might attempt to write to or read from the computer’s file system, delete files or otherwise modify system information. Protected Mode on Windows 8 and above can also run in a Windows App Container, providing an even stronger locked-down environment for customers who enable Protected Mode.
Protected View in Acrobat DC
Like Protected Mode, Protected View confines the execution of untrusted programs (for example, any PDF file and the processes that it invokes) to a restricted sandbox to avoid malicious code using the PDF format from writing to or reading from the computer’s file system. Protected View assumes that all PDF files are potentially malicious and confines processing to the sandbox, unless the user specifically indicates that a file is trusted.
Entitlement and identity management
IT administrators entitle end-user access to Adobe Document Cloud services by utilising named user licensing in the Adobe Admin Console. Acrobat Document Cloud supports three different types of user-named licensing:
- Adobe ID – For Adobe-hosted, user-managed accounts that are created, owned and controlled by individual users. Adobe ID accounts only have access to Acrobat Document Cloud services if an IT administrator enables access.
- Enterprise ID – An Adobe-hosted, enterprise-managed option for accounts that are created and controlled by IT administrators from the customer’s enterprise organisation. The organisation owns and manages the user accounts and all associated assets.
- Federated ID – An enterprise-managed account where all identity profiles are provided by the customer’s single sign-on (SSO) identity management system and are created, owned and controlled by the customer’s IT infrastructure. Adobe integrates with most SAML 2.0 compliant identity providers.
Virus protection
Adobe scans all inbound and outbound corporate e-mail for known malware threats.
Customer data confidentiality
Adobe always treats all customer data as confidential. Adobe does not use or share the information collected on behalf of a customer except as may be allowed in a contract with that customer and as set forth in the Adobe Terms of Use and the Adobe Privacy Policy.
Adobe’s proactive approach to security and stringent procedures described help protect the security of Adobe Acrobat DC, Acrobat Reader DC, and Document Cloud services – and your confidential data. At Adobe, the evolving threat landscape is continuously being monitored to stay ahead of malicious activities and help ensure the security of our customers' data.
For more information, please visit the Adobe TrustCenter.
For more information on Acrobat 2015 and Acrobat Reader 2015 end of support, please visit: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/end-of-support-acrobat-2015-reader-2015.html
Contact us today to request more information on upgrading your software. Our experienced sales team is on hand to answer any of your questions and assist with a stress-free transition.
Cape Town (021) 790 4170
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