You’re an IT professional. You’re responsible for ensuring software deployment happens correctly, securely and consistently. You may be responsible for configuring and then locking down what users can do on their machines. You may even be responsible for making sure the boss can update their “I like to appear in the background on TV” fan page wherever they may be. If all that sounds like your area of expertise (although you might want to find someone else to help with your bosses online and public habits), and if Adobe Reader XI and Acrobat XI are on the list of software applications that need to be installed on several (sometimes tens of thousands) desktops, then you need to get to know the Adobe Customization Wizard. The Customization Wizard allows you to configure and lockdown the Adobe Reader XI* and Acrobat XI* installation options prior to deployment via a simple UI. Sure, you could tweak installation tables and plist files, but this free tool makes all that work so much easier and faster. What kind of options are we talking about here? Not just things like pre-accepting the license agreement, or which features get installed, but also powerful controls such as configuring and locking down the many application security controls, tweaking preferences, including custom Actions and Tool Sets, determining how the software should be updated, and much more.

You can get all the juicy details on the Customization Wizard from the documentation that is part of the Enterprise Toolkit for the Acrobat family. Speaking of updates, the Customization Wizard was just updated itself with numerous bug fixes for installation configuration to help deployments go that much smoother. You can download the Customization Wizard for Windows and Mac OS X. If you have any questions about Customization Wizard, then feel free to send us a comment here or better yet, post to the Acrobat and Reader Enterprise Deployment forum. * Customization Wizard is also available for Adobe Reader X and Acrobat X too. If you need to configure those versions, please use the version of Customization Wizard specific to that Acrobat family version.

Adobe has released security updates for Adobe Reader and Acrobat XI (11.0.02) and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh, and Adobe Reader 9.5.4 and earlier 9.x versions for Linux. You can update your system to the latest versions from the built-in updater or by downloading the patch from the Adobe website. IT professionals can get more details on the update and deploying it from the Enterprise Toolkit for Acrobat products.

For more details please review the official security bulletin.

Cyber attackers today are intent on not only stealing data, but also crashing systems, damaging reputations, or just simply showing off their hacking prowess. As a result, businesses, schools and government agencies have to spend more resources to battle those attacks. It’s not only expensive from an IT perspective, but also in the potential loss of trust in that organization by their customers and constituents. A recent survey by PWC found that 28.6% of respondents claim their company suffered financial loss due to a security breach incident. That’s a worrying statistic for sure.

Universally-accepted file types – including PDF, unfortunately – are one of many ways these hackers gain entry to systems by embedding malicious code into the files. So choosing a PDF software application that fully uses modern mitigation techniques to reduce risk is obviously important. To help you understand the risks and evaluate a vendor’s approach to security, we have recently updated and published the white paper PDF Application Security – How to minimize your risk. It’s available for free from Adobe’s web site.

The white paper contains results of independent third-­party testing on the entire Acrobat family of products, specifically related to security. Adobe Reader X and Adobe Acrobat X produced excellent results in security testing by implementing what security experts call a “defense-in-depth” approach within the software and as offered by the operating system. Adobe Reader XI and Adobe Acrobat XI have improved security and sandboxing even further, and Adobe continues to invest in security. This investment has helped reduce the need for out-­of-­cycle security updates. Note in the diagram below, Adobe Acrobat X only had two out-­of-­cycle security updates, while Adobe Acrobat 9 had seven. Deploying a software patch is a timely and expensive process, so we want to help IT professionals minimize those costs by reducing the number of out-of-cycle patches for the Adobe Acrobat family of products.

If you are considering PDF software based on the licensing cost, please be careful. The days of making software choices based on the quoted price alone – without thorough consideration of security – are long gone. You should be asking vendors about operating system mitigations built into their PDF software, processes in place for addressing security threats, and even how involved the vendor is with the broader security community. To get more details about all the ways the Adobe Acrobat family helps organizations do more with PDF, while also providing advanced security, lower costs, and easier software management, download and read the free white paper, PDF Application Security – How to minimize your risk.

I am a very fortunate individual indeed, for many reasons, most of which wouldn’t be appropriate for me to divulge in a public place like this one. One of the reasons I am so fortunate is that I get to work with talented and dedicated people on a daily basis. Take Steve Cordero, for example. Steve has just posted three new how-to videos on Adobe TV just for IT professionals like you who need to configure, deploy, update and manage Adobe Acrobat XI and Adobe Reader XI within their organization.

Steve is one of our technical support managers, who tirelessly helps our largest customers through their Acrobat deployment needs. But he doesn’t bottle that knowledge up in some kind of magical memory store [due to international copyright laws I am probably not able to make a direct reference to a famous wizarding professor in a famous castle with a famous student wizard that stumbles across a famous magical memory store]. We’re grateful that Steve has been able to share with us all how to get things done.

The latest videos from Mr. Cordero are:

• Creating an AIP for Acrobat XI
• Chaining the Installer for Adobe Acrobat XI on OS X
• Building a Bootstrapper for Acrobat 11.0.01

There are also many other videos within the Acrobat IT Tips show on Adobe TV to help you be successful with Acrobat XI in your organization.

Now, time for me to go back to brewing butterbeer…

UPDATE for FEBRUARY 20, 2013: Patches are now available for Adobe Reader and Acrobat XI for Windows and Macintosh, X for Windows and Macintosh, and 9 for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. Please refer to the Security Advisory section of the Adobe website as well as the Adobe PSIRT blog for details.

Adobe plans to make available updates for Adobe Reader and Acrobat XI (11.0.01 and earlier) for Windows and Macintosh, X (10.1.5 and earlier) for Windows and Macintosh, 9.5.3 and earlier 9.x versions for Windows and Macintosh, and Adobe Reader 9.5.3 and earlier 9.x versions for Linux during the week of February 18, 2013. Adobe will continue to provide updates on these issues via the Security Advisory section of the Adobe website as well as the Adobe PSIRT blog. Please refer to these resources for any details.

Just like other large organizations, Adobe, with over 11,000 employees worldwide, has requirements and challenges when deploying new software. Adobe’s IT department began deployment of Acrobat XI within 48 hours of its release back in October of 2012. Talk about a challenge! Fortunately, thanks to resources like these on the Acrobat Solutions for IT pages, they were prepared and shared some of their experiences with the Acrobat team.

Adobe IT began testing of Acrobat XI during the pre-release phase with approximately 1,000 employees worldwide and some pre-release volunteers. The test plan was focused on making sure that the previous version uninstalled properly, and that Acrobat could be used successfully for day-to-day tasks, such as accessing documents stored in enterprise systems, completing and submitting forms, and participating in shared reviews.

A big part of preparing to deploy any software application is the customization of the installer, and Acrobat XI is no different. Adobe IT had requirements around customizing the installation that included applications and document security settings, such as rights management and Protected View, and a desire to make the install smoother and faster for all users. The deployment of Acrobat XI at Adobe translated to approximately 9,500 systems, with almost half of them on Mac. Adobe IT made the decision to use SCCM for Windows deployments and Casper from JAMF software for Mac deployments.

How was the customization done? With the Adobe Customization Wizard. Most customization decisions were made based on previous installations. This included using the company wide serial number, setting Acrobat as the default PDF viewer, disabling registration, and customizing the User Name and Organization. Another important customization was to include the Adobe Addressbook and Directory Acrodata files. Adobe IT teams from across the world worked together to create and test the installation packages. In addition to deploying straight to desktops, an installation needed to be created for Adobe’s Citrix XenApp environment for those users who prefer or need to run internal applications virtually via Citrix Receiver.

Within six weeks of deployment, Acrobat XI was installed to over 85% of machines within Adobe. Adobe IT is very pleased with the deployment and directly attributes this to the installation speed. Migrating from Acrobat 8 to 9 took about 45 minutes to install, while the Acrobat XI migration took only 4-5 minutes. Another positive is that they have had no significant support issues with Acrobat XI.

When asked what they would do differently, Adobe IT states that getting familiar with the customization settings during the testing prior to release would have made things even easier. Doing so would have also given them a greater appreciation for installation dependencies of other applications. Did anything impact the deployment schedules? Only a small number of stubborn users who declined to upgrade right away or refused to restart their Windows machine so SCCM could do its work.

The deployment of Acrobat XI within Adobe was a big success due to the hard work of Adobe IT. Their focus on testing the prerelease and customizing the installation led to a quick deployment with minimal issues. If you need help with deployment of Acrobat XI, everything you need to know is located right here: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/it-resources.html. It’s like having the Acrobat team right by your side!

Lisa Croft, product  marketing manager, Acrobat Solutions