Posted on 12/10/2009 5:56:56 AM PST by ShadowAce
I don't think about Adobe Flash much. I just use it. I think that's the case for most of us. Almost all the video on the Web is in Flash, and we just take it for granted. That's a mistake. Like any other popular application, it can be an easy way for a cracker to hack into your computer.
Take Adobe Flash's latest round of patches. Adobe doesn't say a lot about exactly what it's fixing in its security advisory, but out of the seven security bugs they're fixing, six of the repairs are on problems that "could potentially lead to code execution."
That's a fancy way of saying that they could be used to bust into your PC. Once there, they could install malware, rip off your personal data, and in general make your life a living hell.
Here's how this kind of thing works. A cracker designs a corrupted Flash (SWF) file. This file is then hosted or embedded in a Web page or even hidden inside a PDF (Portable Document Format) file. When you come along, your Adobe Flash Player runs the program instead of showing you the video content you expected. You may even see the video you were expecting.
In the meantime though the automatic attack is busily at work compromising your system. Usually these hidden attacks are made to infect your Windows PC with malware such as the easily defeated Trojan.Pidief.G.
But, and this is important, while Flash attacks are usually used to exploit Windows' many vulnerabilities, these Flash security holes are also in the Linux and Mac OS X versions as well. Sure, they're both safer than Windows, but if you don't patch your Linux and Mac OS X Adobe Flash Players, you're leaving a window of opportunity open for an enterprising hacker, who's counting on you not taking security seriously, to hack into your systems as well.
So, in short, regardless of what operating system you're running, update to the 'safe' version of Flash Player, 10.0.42.34, now. I'd rather be safe than sorry any day.
Ever since I downloaded this latest Flash patch for my Mac book, I have had problems loading several sites that I go to often, WMAL being the worst offender.
What kind of problems? What’s your setup?
When I try to open certain sites, such as the WMAL one, it jumps around and flashes and doesn’t load, as if I were hitting the reload button continuously, although I am not. I did a little snooping around, got onto the site by finding a link that didn’t have any moving graphics, and at one point got a message that said I didn’t have cookies enabled, which is not the case. Anyway, it is annoying. It ticks me off to do something recommend by Apple to make performance better, and it ends up being worse.
bump to the top
Good ol Adobe, always putting in that extra effort to make sure their software is annoying.
Yes, but as I stated before, I am on a Mac book and use Safari. Different planet.
Ping to Swordmaker...
bttt
Flash is a good tool, but so is a hammer. Most Flash programmers are the equivalent of a five year old with a hammer walking around in the Alzheimer's wing of the nursing home.
I find this to be true with many programming technologies. You can do incredibly cool stuff with them, but the first thing that happens is some bozo working for an advertising company asks "Okay, how can we use this technology to annoy the ever loving crap out of everyone?"
Agreed. Try the Flashblock Firefox extension (If you're using Firefox) It blocks all flash leaving only a little arrow for you to click if you do want to see that particular flash. Plus you can whitelist sites where you always want flash. Its a Godsend in these days of hyperanimated web ads.
Supposedly works on Windows, Linux and OS X—but, remember, a vulnerability does not an exploit make.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
For those using Safari, there is the ClickToFlash plugin which does the same thing; blocking the flash unless you click on the item. Just quit Safari, run the installer, and it's done.
Or just support HTML 5 for video. The only question is whether to use H.264 or Ogg.
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