Adobe has issued a security update for its Flash Player on OS X, Windows, and Linux. The company says in a security bulletin on its website that this update addresses a critical security vulnerability that could allow an attacker to gain control and take over an affected system.
While Adobe notes that hackers have most commonly taken advantage of this vulnerability with systems running Internet Explorer for Windows 7 and Firefox on Windows XP, the exploit affected all users. To combat the issue, the company has pushed the 18.0.0.194 build of Flash Player and is urging all users to update immediately.
The latest build of Flash is available via Adobe’s Download Center, although all users should also be prompted via the software’s built-in update mechanism.
In the past, Apple has blocked old versions of Flash Player in Safari in order to protect user security. Most likely, Apple will again issue an update to its web plug-in blocking mechanism in OS X to disable all versions of Flash Player prior to the most recent 18.0.0.194 build.
Regarding the security flaw that build 18.0.0.194 addresses, Adobe wrote the following in a bulletin on its website:
Adobe has released security updates for Adobe Flash Player for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. These updates address a critical vulnerability (CVE-2015-3113) that could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.
Adobe is aware of reports that CVE-2015-3113 is being actively exploited in the wild via limited, targeted attacks. Systems running Internet Explorer for Windows 7 and below, as well as Firefox on Windows XP, are known targets.
You can download the latest version of Flash here.
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I can’t keep up with these Flash updates anymore. It’s like a game of whack-a-mole.
Just uninstall Flash and be done with it!
Do as I did: uninstall Flash.
You don’t need it anymore, YouTube is, for a long time, 100% HTML5, even XXX sites don’t need flash anymore!
xxx sites don’t need flash anymore? o rly? let me test that…
The XXX site I use doesn’t need flash…
Thank you iPad!
Before everyone complains about flash and all their bugs, let’s not forget the rootpipe issue, and all the other OS X specific operating system issues that have been known to Apple since October of last year and have still not been fixed. I’m glad Adobe can at least fix their shit on time. Maybe Apple should hire some of their security researchers…
The man has a point.
Dude, haven’t you heard? Apple left that wide open so the NSA can exploit our machines at will. Why else do you think they aren’t fixing it?
This Flash vulnerability is much, much more serious and immediate, as it can be directly invoked remotely by an attacker without any social engineering.
Flash is like a root-level Trojan already installed.
Psh, who cares about security holes when there are confederate flag depictions on apps in the App Store!
Lol. This made my day…
If only we lived in a world where human brains could focus on and care about more than one thing at a time! Alas…
Seen the news lately……there is only one thing that matters. And 9to5 jumped right along with it…And alas it aint security in case you are slow on what exactly I mean.
It’s 2015. What’s Flash?
Can Adobe Flash wither away and die, now? Please! This technology has always been a pain. In past times, a necessary pain (for video). Now, not so much. Constant security flaws and then the fact that you have to quit your browsers to update the little bugger.
One day in the near future we will all be Flash free – I sincerely hope. May Flash die soon! A most obnoxious so-called necessity.
Please, can someone just take Flash out and shoot it? Hasn’t it caused enough damage yet? Made possible the creation of ridiculous-looking websites? What is it good for? Blinking ads? Rollovers? Pop-ups?
Thanks for keeping us updated about this antiquated format update that does nothing but deliver stupid ads and cause security threats. Flash could have been something cool (and was in the mid to late 90’s) Adobe should be ashamed of what it is now.
… led me to this: https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-mac-os.html
Lol. And they screw it up by saying this only works on 10.4, 10.5, 10.6 & 10.7 (Lion). They should use my tagline:
“Adobe. For a stupid company we sure do dumb things”
I’ve been using safari’s flash whitelist for a while – allowing the few sites that still use flash to access it. I suppose that its not the updates and fixes that bug me, it’s the process. I don’t want to download it, open the disk image, launch the installer, accept the security warning, quit my browsers and then install it. If they went through the app store, and updates were managed automatically, I wouldn’t have any issue installing the updates. But having to go through all that led me to this:
https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-mac-os.html
unfortunately, there are still a few sites I visit that still require flash. Adobe’s update method is a pain in the ass. Good thing I have ClickToFlash and AdBlock installed on my MacBook Pro to block all flash/ads.