Should You Turn Off Your Flash Player? CRITICAL Vulnerability
By Ian Scott
May 30th, 2008
It’s been reported that there is a serious vulnerability in Adobe’s Flash Player. By visiting a website that has Adobe Flash media and allowing the media to run on your computer with Adobe Flash Player, you are at risk of having your computer compromised if the Flash file has been created to take advantage of the vulnerability.
Adobe is aware of the problem and admits that this exploit is being used right now. However, there is no fix for the vulnerability but Adobe has issued a statement advising “We are working with Symantec to investigate the potential SWF vulnerability, and will have an update once we get more information.”
At this time, it appears that only Windows versions of the Flash Player are being targeted, but versions for Mac and Linux operating systems may also be potentially insecure. For now, it’s probably best if you turn off your Flash Player which means there will be many websites (think some Facebook game applications, Youtube videos, etc.) that will not be available to you until an update Flash version has been released.
Update: Adobe suggests that ensuring you have the latest version of Flash should keep you safe from this vulnerability. Get it here.
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