Can a developer adopt a plugin marked as “not updated in over 2 years”?

I have come across a few WordPress plugins on http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ with this warning:

This plugin hasn’t been updated in over 2 years. It may no longer be
maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used
with more recent versions of WordPress.

Is there a way to “adopt” or “verify” a plugin like this? I do have one plugin on wordpress.org so I understand the process. What is the correct process to bring an old or possibly abandoned plugin current?

Send and email to plugins@wordpress.org and they can help you try to get in touch with the original plugin author. If the author is no where to be found and you can show that your able to keep it up to date it is possible that you could be allowed to take it over.