Mozilla, soon after a severe vulnerability was found in Adobe's popular
Flash Player browser plugin, has blocked all versions of Flash by
default in its Firefox browser.
Announcing the news, Mark Schmidt,
Head of Firefox Support at Mozilla, in a tweet
said, "BIG
NEWS!! All versions of Flash are blocked by default in Firefox as of
now." The company is also recommending users to disable the browser
plugin.
On its support page, Mozilla notes,
"Old versions of the Flash Player plugin have known vulnerabilities.
All users are strongly recommended to check for updates on our plugin
check page. The problematic add-on or plugin will be automatically
disabled and no longer usable."
(Also see: Attackers Can Take Over Your PC Using Flash Player, Here's How to Stay Safe)
The company went on to suggest
that Mozilla will block the use of any third-party plugin from general
use once aware that it is causing issues in the Firefox browser's
security or performance. "When Mozilla becomes aware of add-ons,
plugins, or other third-party software that seriously compromises
Firefox security, stability, or performance and meets certain criteria,
the software may be blocked from general use," it said.
In other
news, Facebook's new CSO (chief security officer) Alex Stamos took to
Twitter to reveal his frustration about Adobe Flash saying that it was
time for Adobe to announce an end to the Flash service. He said, "It is
time for Adobe to announce the end-of-life date for Flash and to ask the
browsers to set killbits on the same day."
In a follow-up tweet, Stamos
added, "Even if 18 months from now, one set date is the only way to
disentangle the dependencies and upgrade the whole ecosystem at once."
(Also see: Second Critical Flash Player Vulnerability Found in Leaked Hacking Team Data)
A
new vulnerability in Adobe Flash was discovered last week and the firm
confirmed the existence of the problem and categorised it as "critical".
The vulnerability could result in attackers taking control of PCs and
running malicious code.
To recall, the exploit was reportedly
originally discovered by Hacking Team, an Italian collective known
for supplying electronic surveillance software to governments and other
bodies around the world, but not made public. An attack on Hacking Team
by an anti-surveillance activist resulted in over 400GB of proprietary
data being released to the general public, including information about
the Adobe Flash vulnerability. By keeping it a secret, the company had
been able to exploit it for its own gain. It is not known how long ago
Hacking Team discovered it and how long the firm had been using it, or
for what purposes.
Recently, a second dangerous vulnerability
in Adobe Flash Player came to light from the Hacking Team data.
Security firm FireEye reported the discovery to Adobe, which confirmed
that it affected even the latest versions of Flash. Adobe classified it
as critical but had only committed to releasing an update "during the
week of July 12, 2015".
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