SAN JOSE, CA- Adobe Systems Incorporated, (NASDAQ: ADBE) Despite the security update, the US-based software development giant admits that a severe vulnerability has affected all major operating systems.
A few months have passed since the last time that Adobe announced a major vulnerability on its Flash software. Now, just one day after releasing its monthly security update, the company has confirmed through a bulletin that it has discovered a new “critical vulnerability” that affects all platforms – Windows, Linux and Mac. The exploit can cause the systems to crash and/or allow hackers to take control over them.
Adobe has labeled the critical vulnerability as CVE-2015-7645 and says it affects the latest version of Flash, as well as any earlier versions. “Adobe is aware of a report that an exploit for this vulnerability is being used in limited, targeted attacks. Adobe expects to make an update available during the week of October 19,” the company wrote on its website.
As for the resolve of the issue, efforts are already in process but no progress has been noted yet and the earliest possible day when the issue could be solved is considered to be the 19th of this month. Until the problem is addressed, the only way to remain safe is to uninstall Adobe Flash. You can also try to download the latest version, but that will change absolutely nothing since the vulnerability has not been fixed yet.
In the meantime, Adobe tried to prevent users from panicking, by mentioning that so far that attacks making use of the exploit are limited at this point and used against specific targets – however no further details are disclosed.
Techspot mentions:
“Flash was once the standard for internet video, casual games and any kind of animation. At the height of its popularity it ran on 800 million cell phones manufactured by 20 handset makers, although it was famously never supported on Apple’s mobile devices. […] The plug-in’s popularity is falling by the day; only 20 percent of sites now use Flash content compared with 50 percent in 2011.”
Those statistics should be able to give us a pretty good idea of the number of users whose computers are in danger.
Sources: Opptrends, Τechspot
Image credit: Craig Petronella, LinkedIn
