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Vulnerability In Adobe’s Flash Player Browser Plugin

Shorebreak | Jul 14, 2015 | 4,118 posts since 2010

News of the latest Flash flaw comes from Trend Micro, which said it reported the bug (CVE-2015-5123) to Adobe’s Security Team. Adobe confirmed that it is working on a patch for the two outstanding zero-day vulnerabilities exposed in the Hacking Team breach. We are likely to continue to see additional Flash zero day bugs surface as a result of this breach. Instead of waiting for Adobe to fix yet another flaw in Flash, please consider removing or at least hobbling this program.
Third Hacking Team Flash Zero-Day Found — Krebs on Security

From Mozilla

Re: Firefox:

Flash Player Plugin 18.0.0.203 (click-to-play) has been blocked for your protection. Why was it blocked? Old versions of the Flash Player plugin have known vulnerabilities. All users are strongly recommended to check for updates on our plugin check page (no updates were available at the time of this posting). Who is affected? All users who have these versions of the Flash plugin installed. What does this mean? The problematic add-on or plugin will be automatically disabled and no longer usable.

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paoli2 | Jul 14, 2015 | 2,391 posts since 2011

I have been having problems opening my Firefox since I did the latest Adobe Update. Could this be connected with this problem? Does anyone know how we go about removing the Adobe or "hobbling" it on Windows 7? Thanks for any info you can share.

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me1004 | Jul 14, 2015 | 573 posts since 2010

If you downloaded the Adobe Flash installer to install it, that should include a deinstaller. You otherwise might be able to download it now and simply use the deinstaller, not sure.

Other than that, you will find different ways to turn it off or deinstall it in different browsers. In Firefox, go to Add Ons, and under Plugins, you should see the Flash and Shockwave plugins. You can either turn them off there or delete them.

Flash is decidedly falling from favor, but only very slowlly. If you dont; have it, allkinds of things at all kinds of Websites will not play. Neithere will a lot of videos arond the Internet.

For what its worth, Trend Micro is owned by Microsoft. They bought it several years ago after all the trouble they had with viruses. I believe it is the foundation for Microsoft's current Windows Defender (OS 8) and it s predecessor for Windows 7.

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paoli2 | Jul 14, 2015 | 2,391 posts since 2011

Thanks Me1004. If it will help me access Firefox easier, it will be worth turning off or deleting the Adobe Flash. I'll check it out.

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Shorebreak | Jul 14, 2015 | 4,118 posts since 2010

Firefox should have automatically disabled it if it's the latest version of Flash Player.

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paoli2 | Jul 14, 2015 | 2,391 posts since 2011

I just followed the instructions and disabled Adobe. I don't use Flash much anyway. Just hope it helps me be able to use Firefox again.

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me1004 | Jul 14, 2015 | 573 posts since 2010

There is Flash used on this Website, as I can see at the right of this post as I write it and at the bottom of this page -- in Ally Bank ads. :)

I note, in Firefox, you have the option to simply disable it, when Flash is being used on a Web page, and have it ask you if you want to enable Flash.

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topkapi56 | Jul 22, 2015 | 49 posts since 2011

Shore, my Firefox disabled it automatically. When the new fix came out, it returned the option to enable it or not. Java and Flash have had known security issues for a long time. I think what ticked off browser companies is that Java and Flash have continually failed to address the problems. Using them is fine so long as people realize that they have been warned and must assume whatever risk is involved.

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me1004 | Jul 14, 2015 | 573 posts since 2010

I will note, today Adobe put out an update for Flash, v, 18.0.0.209, to fix the problem.

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