Adobe, Microsoft Patch Critical Security Bugs

Adobe has pushed out a critical update to plug at least 52 security holes in its widely-used Flash Player browser plugin, and another update to patch holes in Adobe Reader. Separately, Microsoft released 11 security updates to fix vulnerabilities more than 40 flaws in Windows and related software.

First off, if you have Adobe Flash Player Installed and haven’t yet hobbled this insecure program so that it runs only when you want it to, you are playing with fire. It’s bad enough that hackers are constantly finding and exploiting zero-day flaws in Flash Player before Adobe even knows about the bugs.

The bigger issue is that Flash is an extremely powerful program that runs inside the browser, which means users can compromise their computer just by browsing to a hacked or malicious site that targets unpatched Flash flaws.

The smartest option is probably to ditch this insecure program once and for all and significantly increase the security of your system in the process. I’ve got more on that approach — as well as slightly less radical solutions — in A Month Without Adobe Flash Player.

If you choose to update, please do it today. The most recent versions of Flash should be available from this Flash distribution page or the Flash home page. Windows users who browse the Web with anything other than Internet Explorer may need to apply this patch twice, once with IE and again using the alternative browser (Firefox, Opera, e.g.). Chrome and IE should auto-install the latest Flash version on browser restart.

Happily, Adobe has delayed plans to stop distributing direct download links to its Flash Player program. The company had said it would decommission the direct download page on June 30, 2016, but the latest, patched Flash version 22.0.0.209 for Windows and Mac systems is still available there. The wording on the site has been changed to indicate the download links will be decommissioned “soon.”

Adobe’s advisory on the Flash flaws is here. The company also released a security update that addresses at least 30 security holes in Adobe Reader. The latest version of Reader for most Windows and Mac users is v. 15.017.20050.

Six of the 11 patches Microsoft issued this month earned its most dire “critical” rating, which Microsoft assigns to software bugs that can be exploited to remotely commandeer vulnerable machines with little to no help from users, save from perhaps browsing to a hacked or malicious site.

In fact, most of the vulnerabilities Microsoft fixed this Patch Tuesday are in the company’s Web browsers — i.e., Internet Explorer (15 vulnerabilities and its newer Edge browser (13 flaws). Both patches address numerous browse-and-get-owned issues.

Another critical patch from Redmond tackles problems in Microsoft Office that could be exploited through poisoned Office documents.

For further breakdown on the patches this month from Adobe and Microsoft, check out these blog posts from security vendors Qualys and Shavlik. And as ever, if you encounter any problems downloading or installing any of the updates mentioned above please leave a note about your experience in the comments below.

Tags: adobe, chrome, Edge, firefox, Flash version 22.0.0.209, internet explorer, Microsoft Patch Tuesday July 2016, opera, windows

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 13th, 2016 at 9:26 am and is filed under Time to Patch. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging is currently not allowed.