[Infowarrior] - Flash Player update closes vulnerability identified by Hacking Team

[Richard Forno]

Flash Player update closes vulnerability identified by Hacking Team

By Roger Fingas	
Wednesday, July 08, 2015, 02:02 pm PT (05:02 pm ET)

http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/07/08/flash-player-update-closes-vulnerability-identified-by-hacking-team

Adobe on Wednesday updated Flash Player to fix a number of security vulnerabilities, including one in the hands of Hacking Team, a company that infamously sold snooping tools and services to government agencies around the world — potentially including harsh authoritarian regimes.

The flaw was first uncovered several days ago by security researcher Brian Krebs, who found a related document in data published by a separate group of hackers that recently broke into Hacking Team's systems, TechCrunch noted. On Tuesday, Adobe issued a security bulletin promising to close the hole the next day.

At the time, Adobe claimed that people did not need to worry, as no active use of the exploit had been discovered. Mac, Windows, and Linux systems could be at risk if left unpatched.

Apple and much of the rest of the technology world has slowly distanced itself from Flash, partly because of the rise of mobile devices, but also because of security threats. Flash and Java are two of the most popular vectors for exploits.

Flash hasn't been pre-installed on Macs since late 2010. Many websites, such as YouTube, have dropped Flash from their primary interfaces and video players.

Mac, Windows, and Linux versions of the update can be downloaded from Adobe's website. The Mac release is identified as 18.0.0.203.

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