Is your Flash Player vulnerable?
A “Highly Critical” vulnerability has been found in Flash Player, affecting nearly all web users.
A new security advisory at Secunia describes newly-found problems in Macromedia’s Flash Player for all versions up to v8.0.22.0.
This affects almost everyone on the web, as the Flash Player is used by almost every Windows-based browser, including (but not limited to):
- Internet Explorer (including IE-based “browsers” such as Maxthon and Avant Browser)
- Firefox (including derivatives such as Flock)
- Mozilla (and other Mozilla-based browsers)
- Opera
- Netscape
- Other Flash-capable browsers
This is not a fault with these browsers per se. However, as the Flash Player component is embedded into the browser, the problem can be exploited by simply browsing to a site that contains a malicious Flash movie.
Updating Flash Player
You need to update the Flash Player for your browser(s). To avoid having any (more?) problems because of this vulnerability, download the latest Flash Player (v8.0.24.0 at the time of writing) from the Macromedia website.
Important: If you have more than one browser installed (eg. Firefox and Internet Explorer), make sure you update the software for each browser. To do this, you will have to visit the Flash Player Download Center with each browser you have installed. The page automatically detects your browser and displays an appropriate version of the software.
Go and update as soon as possible!
Blessings Steve
Update: Problems downloading
Heh.
When I tried to update my other browsers, I had mixed results. I was able to update the Flash Player easily using Firefox, which also updated all the other Mozilla or Netscape-based versions.
However, when I accessed the Download Center using Internet Explorer, it seemed to display the download for a random operating system (namely Mac OS X and OS 9… I’m using Windows here…).
If you are having trouble updating your browser, Macromedia also have a list of downloads for all versions of Flash Player.
- Macromedia Web Players - list of “alternate” versions of Flash Player
Hopefully that’s the last we’ll hear of it. 
[Listening to Delirious, GLO — Jesus' Blood]
