Why you should always upgrade to the latest version of Adobe Flash Player

It really is probable that you have a lot of Adobe software installed on your personal computer or Mac. It could be Adobe Acrobat Reader, it may be Adobe Air, or it could be Adobe Flash Player.


Flash is so popular that Google ships it as a thoughtful built-in plugin for its Chrome browser. It is also likely that there's Adobe software onto your Android device, and it would be one (or all) of many same three in the above list. All very nice – you can view PDF files on your hard disk and with regards to your mobile device, you could use Flash on your computer and on your Android phone. But there is definitely a price to pay for all those this lovely integration – security. Adobe software can be one of the hottest targets for hackers and malware writers. In 2012, Adobe had the dubious honor of being accountable for the very best three most critical security vulnerabilities and had five vulnerabilities throughout top ten.


Adobe issues frequent updates for many its products however it is often an uphill struggle against hackers and cyber criminals. Recently, Adobe was caught off guard when hackers started using an unknown flaw in Adobe Flash Player to infect PCs which has a Trojan that opened a back door on the compromised computer. These previously unknown flaws are known as zero-day vulnerabilities, as zero will probably be the quantity of days the applying company knew about the matter before previously it was exploited.


This type of flaw targeted Flash Player on Windows and was exploited via an email which contained a Microsoft Word document with many embedded Flash from it. Should the document was opened, the Flash was run along with the PC was compromised. When Adobe started discovering the matter they came accross the fact that security hole not exclusively existed on Flash for Windows but additionally Flash for Mac, Linux and ok, you guessed it, Android.


Based on the security advisory released by Adobe: “Users of Adobe Flash Player 11.1.115.7 and earlier versions on Android 4.x devices should update to Adobe Flash Player 11.1.115.8. Users of Adobe Flash Player 11.1.111.8 and earlier versions for Android 3.x and earlier versions should update to Flash Player 11.1.111.9.” The easiest technique to do that is via Google Play.


Although there will be no known attacks that target this weakness in Flash for Android, it actually is a matter of time before these PC-centric attacks (via Flash and PDF files) start to appear on cellphones too.


Stay vigilant, don’t download attachments from dubious emails and always check Google Play to see what apps need updating with regards to your device.
 

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