Zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player

http://www.h-online.com/security/Zero-day-vulnerability-in-Adobe-Flash-Player-Reader-and-Acrobat--/news/113828

A patch will not be available before the 30th of July.
Note that Windows, Linux and Mac are all vulnerable,
and that disabling Javascript does not protect you,
because the flaw is in Flash Player -- making it crash
can be used to execute any appended code.
Only disabling Flash in the browser is safe.
I would propose using two different K-Meleon versions
at the same time, one of them with disabled flash plugin
(temporarily renamed), and the other one with Flash
enabled, to use only for indispensable things, like
Internet TV or similar.
Forcing a second profile can be achieved from the
command line by adding -new at the end, which
should start a new browser instance (since KM 1.1).

Fred

Would using Foxit instead of the Adobe reader avoid the problem?

Would uninstalling the Flash player 10 and rolling back to a prevoius version of the Flash player avoid the problem?

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

Using FoxitReader would probably help with the
PDF-problem.
Earlier Flash players may not have the same exploit
problem, but they had other vulnerabilities, that's
partly why they have been replaced by Flash 9 and 10.
But I cannot estimate that precisely, basically all
I know is, what the vulnerability message tells me.

Fred

I searched my system, but couldn't find authplay.dll anywhere. I'm not using Adobe PDF reader. As for Flash, it would be good to know if that file is still needed for the exploit, or it can just happen anyway... :O

I #%£@«&§ hate Flash for being such a show-stopper, honeypot target and braindead designer breeder. Let's hope HTML5 can put an end to it soon...

TY, Fred, for letting us know about it.

--- sig ---

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2009 11:28AM by foobarly.

Quote
foobarly
As for Flash, it would be good to know if that file is still needed for the exploit, or it can just happen anyway... :O

It can just happen anyway.

Yogi,

Usually I rely upon the privacy bar and its "KillFlash" feature, but this exploit is bad, so I took the unusual step (for me) of uninstalling Flash and all its addons that I could find. I also am now using Foxit Reader and Editor.

Whenever they actually get around to patching Flash 9 and 10, I'll download the fixed version and reinstall.

FWIW, I haven't missed not having Flash at all so far.

<shrug>

N

The updated versions of Flash player are now available at the
Adobe website, here :

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Updating is necessary to avoid major security problems.
Flash 10 for XP and newer, updated Flash 9 for Windows 98.
For Linux usually Flash 10 for Linux, or, if this is not supported
in some Linux systems, an updated Flash 9 plugin is included in the
following developers package:

http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/9/flash_player_9_linux_dev.tar.gz

Fred

Quote
Fred
The updated versions of Flash player are now available at the
Adobe website, here :

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Updating is necessary to avoid major security problems.
Flash 10 for XP and newer, updated Flash 9 for Windows 98.
For Linux usually Flash 10 for Linux, or, if this is not supported
in some Linux systems, an updated Flash 9 plugin is included in the
following developers package:

http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/9/flash_player_9_linux_dev.tar.gz

Fred

Fred,

Thanks much, am now once again using flash. <g>

N

newest versions of the Adobe Flash 9 and 10 players are versions 9.0.246.0 and 10.0.32.18. be sure you are using either one of these latest versions of Flash Player to protect yourselves from the recent security vulnerabilities.

Fred, Adobe Flash Player 10 can also be installed under Win2000; read the Flash Player 10 system requirements carefully next time. Flash 10 requires minimum Win2k but also works on WinXP/Vista/Win7.

Go here to download the latest Flash Player 9 player for those using Win98/ME.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2009 01:50AM by 4td8s.

Not sure about foxit? Anybody?

N



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2009 03:11AM by ndebord.

How do I tell if I am using the newest 10.0.32.18 version? I ran the update noted earlier in this thread.

This is from my about plugins:
File name: NPSWF32.dll
Shockwave Flash 10.0 r32

Quote
JamesD
How do I tell if I am using the newest 10.0.32.18 version? I ran the update noted earlier in this thread.

This is from my about plugins:
File name: NPSWF32.dll
Shockwave Flash 10.0 r32

You are already updated to last version.

Flash test:
http://www.adobe.com/es/software/flash/about/

Foxit hasn't dependencies with the affected dll. They have different engines.

Foxit doesn't play rich media (swf).
Specially crafted SWF files were embedded into PDF documents causing Adobe Reader 9 & 10 to execute arbitrary code when viewed.
Since Adobe Reader 8 doesn't have support for rich media either it is immune to this exploit.

Quote
Yogi
Foxit doesn't play rich media (swf).
Specially crafted SWF files were embedded into PDF documents causing Adobe Reader 9 & 10 to execute arbitrary code when viewed.
Since Adobe Reader 8 doesn't have support for rich media either it is immune to this exploit.

Yogi,

thanks... I seemingly don't miss SWF at all, or perhaps nobody has sent me complicated PDF files.

Tks.

N