Major Flash security flaw – Leo LaPorte mentioned this security hole in Flash over the weekend. CERT has issued a security warning officially.
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/486225
Code to exploit this hole have been published, and it only takes looking at a web page (or a PDF file) to compromise your computer. Antivirus programs will not protect you.
Regular readers know my system was infected a few weeks ago, and Flash was my main suspect. Web sites that are normally trustworthy could carry third party flash ads that are rogue. If your web site allows third party flash apps, be sure the company thoroughly screens its advertisers.
This flaw affects all platforms including Mac and Linux, although Windows is the most likely to be exploited.
Leo’s guest strongly suggested installing the 10.1 beta version ASAP. To install a beta, you have to uninstall 10.0 first
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/
if you don’t do that, make sure your critical files are backed up, system restore is actively creating system checkpoints and be extremely cautious about visiting untrusted web sites or PDF files you weren’t expecting – even from a “friend”
Assuming you are running Internet Explorer, you need to install both the Plugin and the Activex component.
A couple interesting things about the 10.1 version. Adobe goes to signficant lengths to warn developers about being aware of memory constraints on low memory devices like Cell Phones. 10.1 seems to work much better on my old 256 MB laptop that has at most 160 MB of memory. 10.0 would basically grab all available memory, and after you exited the pages with the flash content, would not return the memory to the O/S. IE would continue to keep that memory “just in case”, so the only way to run anything else was to close IE.
The second thing – which is clearly the result of the pressure from Apple – is building a mechanism into Flash so that devices that don’t support Flash (ie iPhone, iPad) will “fall back” to alternate content written in HTML5 instead of what they do today – just ask you to install Flash on a device that won’t run Flash.