Remember that time Adobe
confirmed a vulnerability in Flash that was so bad, the only way to protect yourself was to uninstall Flash
completely? Well this new security flaw isn’t quite as dire, but it is
something that you need to be aware of and act on immediately. The good news is
that unlike that last major security hole, Adobe has already patched the
problems and made an update available for download.
Before we go any further, we
need to be perfectly clear: this is a very serious security flaw. According to
Adobe, the issues in question are “critical vulnerabilities that could
potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.” In other
words, hackers can use the aforementioned flaws to break into your computer,
take control of it, and even steal your private data.
No one wants that, and Adobe’s
latest update addresses 23 security holes, with the severe ones noted
above among them.
Most interestingly, the security bulletin issued by Adobe states that the
issues at hand could potentially impact Windows, OS X, Linux, iOS, Android and
Chrome OS. As such, the company has stated that all users should update their
devices immediately.
Here are Adobe’s notes on how
to update each different platform, with several of the required links included:
Adobe recommends users of the
Adobe Flash Player Desktop Runtime for Windows and Macintosh update to
21.0.0.182 via the update mechanism within the product when prompted, or by
visiting the Adobe
Flash Player Download Center.
Adobe recommends users of the
Adobe Flash Player Extended Support Release should update to version 18.0.0.333
by visitinghttp://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html.
Adobe recommends users of Adobe
Flash Player for Linux update to Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.577 by visiting
the Adobe Flash
Player Download Center.
Adobe Flash Player installed
with Google Chrome will be automatically updated to the latest Google Chrome
version, which will include Adobe Flash Player 21.0.0.182 for Windows,
Macintosh, Linux and Chrome OS.
Adobe Flash Player installed
with Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer for Windows 10 will be automatically
updated to the latest version, which will include Adobe Flash Player
21.0.0.182.
Adobe Flash Player installed
with Internet Explorer for Windows 8.x will be automatically updated to the
latest version, which will include Adobe Flash Player 21.0.0.182.