Adobe Flash Exploit Could Log Keystrokes

Kenyon Lessi writes "Adobe has issued three critical security updates, one of which is designed to stop a problem in the way the Flash player interacts with browsers, which could result in users' keystrokes being transmitted to attackers. The problem affect Adobe Flash Player version 9.0.45.0, 8.0.34.0 and 7.0.69.0, as well as their earlier versions running on all platforms."

Comments

Re:Always So Negative

[monk.e.boy]

they should Open Source the player. That would solve most of their problems.

The only bit that is worth anything is the Flash IDE designer thingy.

If it was opensource it'd be a great stop gap between HTML + JS (now) and HTML + SVG + JS (future). It'd also help fight Silverlight, which is gunna take over the world if we aren't careful :-(

Any other ideas for spreading multi-media web without using Java (ugh) Flash (ugh) or Silverlight (hm...)?

monk.e.boy

Re:If exploited on a ...

[AKAImBatman]

I believe the buttons on the Wiimote map to a few keys (for use in Flash games)

Actually, the keypresses only make it as far as Javascript. In order to "hear" the presses in Flash, you need to use the WiiCade API, which traps all the keypresses and forwards them to Flash. There's also the earlier Quasimondo API, but it fails to trap the keypresses, making it useless under most circumstances.

Re:Great...

[Cutriss]

You'd think that it would have occurred to them that they were putting a Flash ad on a page discussing a major flaw in Flash. Of course, they just want to get paid and don't really care about you, so I can't say I'm all that surprised.

Or...maybe the world isn't as evil of a place as you think, and the people writing the article aren't the same people that develop the website? Maybe they don't even know how to use Flash and just write copy?

Is the ActiveX affected?

[smooth wombat]

We don't allow people to install Flash on their systems here at work but we do provide the ActiveX component to run Flash. Is it affected as well? The article doesn't say.

Personally, I don't run Flash. Time and again it has been shown to be a security risk and these new developments only strengthen that perception.

Re:Quality

[Reality Master 101]

So well written that they couldn't port it to 64bit platforms without rewriting the underlying script host from the ground up.

Portability (which has multiple dimensions) is not a measure of quality, it is a design goal that may or may not be part of the goals of a project.

Re:Monopoly

[TheRaven64]

Look at IE between killing off NetScape and FireFox becoming popular. Now compare that to IE when it had competition from NetScape and later FireFox. I don't want SilverLight to win, but I'd much rather Flash had some competition, because competition helps encourage innovation.

Misleading headline

[mad.frog]

More accurate would be "Adobe Issues Fixes For Flash Exploit That Could Log Keystrokes"...

Headline implies that exploits were just found and still exist. Not so.

Re:Quality

[Mister Whirly]

You sir, are not a programmer. End of story.