Adobe Flash To Be Top Hacker Target In 2010

An anonymous reader writes "Adobe Systems' Flash and Acrobat Reader products will become the preferred targets for criminal hackers (PDF) in 2010, surpassing Microsoft Office applications, a security vendor predicted this week. 'Cybercriminals have long picked on Microsoft products due to their popularity. In 2010, we anticipate Adobe software, especially Acrobat Reader and Flash, will take the top spot,' security vendor McAfee said in its '2010 Threat Predictions' report. 'We have absolutely seen an increase in the number of attacks, around Reader in particular and also Flash Player to some extent,' CTO Kevin Lynch told reporters at the Adobe Max conference in October. 'We're working to decrease the amount of time between when we know about a problem and when we release a fix. That used to be a couple of months; now it's within two weeks for critical issues.'"

Comments

I already see this happening

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Sometimes when I go to a website, it will have Flash malware which forces me to download unwanted content and then plays it without my consent.

Damn you Youtube!!!

Re:I already see this happening

[fluffybacon]

I don't understand this. Can you give me an analogy, possibly involving a car?

Re:I already see this happening

[bhamlin]

Sounds like someone's been a victim of one too many Rickrolls....

Re:I already see this happening

[Anonymous Coward]

This thread is devoted to CmdrTaco's small penis.

Re:I already see this happening

[panda]

It's like "when I'm drivin' in my car and a man comes on the radio, tellin' me more and more about some useless information supposed to fire my imagination."

Re:I already see this happening

[g0bshiTe]

And I supposed you can't get no satisfaction!

Re:I already see this happening

[just_another_sean]

Exactly. I can't stand the one where he keeps telling me how white my shirts could be.

Re:I already see this happening

[Aeros]

Rush Limbaugh?

Re:I already see this happening

[Sir_Lewk]

Nope, not doing it. Is PizzaAnalogyGuy around?

Re:I already see this happening

[VanessaE]

Tubestop is your friend (tm).

Re:I already see this happening

[digitalunity]

Does anyone else see the irony that the white paper is in Adobe PDF format and most people will be reading about Adobe Reader vulnerabilities IN Adobe Reader?

Re:I already see this happening

[ThatsNotPudding]

It's not a bug, it's synergy!

Re:I already see this happening

[sopssa]

I could use some of that. Lets say I forgot what mother always told me about washing white and red clothes, and that I'll be wearing pink for a while.

Re:I already see this happening

[datapharmer]

reader != flash, unless of course you use the definition of "slows down computer, decreases stability, and creates a security nightmare for IT" in which case, good job - you are dead on!

Re:I already see this happening

[the_hellspawn]

Youtube my butt! Your looking at PoRN! I know I get it too :{p

Re:I already see this happening

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary does mention both Flash and Acrobat reader.

Re:I already see this happening

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but reader == reader. From the summary, "we anticipate Adobe software, especially Acrobat Reader and Flash"

Re:I already see this happening

[Anonymous Coward]

rtfa

Re:I already see this happening

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFS!

Yes, the headline says "Flash", but the very first damn line of the summary reads: "Adobe Systems' Flash and Acrobat Reader products will become the preferred targets for criminal hackers [pdf] in 2010...".

I can understand not RTFA (after all, you might catch something from an Acrobat Reader vulnerability by reading a PDF about Acrobat Reader vulnerabilities in a vulnerable Acrobat Reader), but sheesh!

Re:I already see this happening

[GameboyRMH]

Or better yet, Flashblock.

Why only stop Youtube videos? They're one of the few flash objects you might actually want to load (I keep youtube on my Flashblock whitelist). Plus, Flash-borne viruses are typically delivered as ads, which Tubestop won't block from loading.

Re:I already see this happening

[stuntpope]

But at least you smoke better cigarettes than he does!

Re:I already see this happening

[Anonymous Coward]

And I supposed you can't get no satisfaction!

Hey, that's what he said!

(A well-updated PC gathers no cruft. Moss can't grow on a pebble that is in rotary motion. If you wanted a car analogy, there was need to make us do lyrical jumping jacks. Flash is like the fuel for that sort of thing.)

Re:I already see this happening

[Sir_Lewk]

Perfect, thanks!

Re:I already see this happening

[Sulphur]

I tell a pizza waitress not to put flash malware on the pie.

Instead of complying, the cook puts it under the cheese.

Re:I already see this happening

[reub2000]

Well some of us are listening to the Cat Power cover.

Yuh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess, Microsoft are just ready to offer the solution in the form of Silverlight, right?

Re:Yuh huh

[Neuroelectronic]

I dunno, but it just seems to me that embedding a Turing machine into a website is just a bad idea no matter what you call it.

Re:Yuh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft would be foolish to let pass an opportunity to promote its competing products, yeah. They tend not to be foolish when it comes to such things.

I don't see what Adobe's problem is with the security vulnerabilities. Don't trust data from the network, and don't ever use a variable/etc without bounds checking. How many versions, bugfixes, patches, and revisions does it take to get these two basic things right? Real question. I don't understand the difficulty here.

Re:Yuh huh

[El Lobo]

That would be the right time, yes. But actually, the problem with todays systems is not as much the OS as the applications that run on it. Almost every self-respecting OS has an Auto-update function that works more or less well. Unless you are a paranoid schizophrenic that update the OS manually (forgetting to do it now and then), the OS is relatively secure. The problem are the applications. Now tell me, how many of us run to download a new Java machine or a new Acrobat reader, or a new Cobian Backup, or a new WinAmp when a vulnerability is discovered on any of those products. Hell you will be lucky if you even get to know that a new vulnerability was found on your faithful uTorrent... So when you get pwned, what's the first thing the user blame? The OS of course...

At work we had a Windows Server 2008 hacked. It was killing the whole network sending spam and trying to infect other machines on our AD. Our boss was already blaming Bill Gate's mother ... On a closer inspection, the problem was discovered. The system was running a quite old version of WebBoard (a system for collaboration, which was developed originally by O'Reilly). The firewall has the port 8080 open to allow users to connect. Some people discovered the open port, found out that WebBoard was running, and took advantage of the vulnerability to upload and run malicious code on the server. Because WebBoard is a service, running as the System account, you can imagine what happened there. Did our IT manager know about this vulnerability. Not at all, even if it was fixed on a posterior build.... How many "forgotten" programs, and non-OS related services do people have running in their machines, unpatched and unattended? Think about this...

Re:Yuh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly Silverlight is more secure than Flash.

Re:Yuh huh

[causality]

That would be the right time, yes. But actually, the problem with todays systems is not as much the OS as the applications that run on it. Almost every self-respecting OS has an Auto-update function that works more or less well. Unless you are a paranoid schizophrenic that update the OS manually (forgetting to do it now and then), the OS is relatively secure. The problem are the applications. Now tell me, how many of us run to download a new Java machine or a new Acrobat reader, or a new Cobian Backup, or a new WinAmp when a vulnerability is discovered on any of those products. Hell you will be lucky if you even get to know that a new vulnerability was found on your faithful uTorrent... So when you get pwned, what's the first thing the user blame? The OS of course...

At work we had a Windows Server 2008 hacked. It was killing the whole network sending spam and trying to infect other machines on our AD. Our boss was already blaming Bill Gate's mother ... On a closer inspection, the problem was discovered. The system was running a quite old version of WebBoard (a system for collaboration, which was developed originally by O'Reilly). The firewall has the port 8080 open to allow users to connect. Some people discovered the open port, found out that WebBoard was running, and took advantage of the vulnerability to upload and run malicious code on the server. Because WebBoard is a service, running as the System account, you can imagine what happened there. Did our IT manager know about this vulnerability. Not at all, even if it was fixed on a posterior build.... How many "forgotten" programs, and non-OS related services do people have running in their machines, unpatched and unattended? Think about this...

Perhaps the OS deserves some blame (kneejerk types, note that some != all). On Windows there is no equivalent to the various centralized package managers that come with standard Linux distributions. You cannot go to one place and run one program and simultaneously update every last application installed. The biggest obstacle seems to be the copyright restrictions that prevent the redistribution of most Windows software. But for whatever reason, on Windows, every last application is on its own and must make provisions for its own updates. If it doesn't, or if the user gets tired of dialogs popping up and just wants to get rid of them, then you get the scenario you describe. On a Linux or BSD -style system, WebBoard would be a package like any other and would be regularly updated as part of your routine system maintainence.

Re:Yuh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

You shouldn't have to know about the vulnerability. Your IT should know that you don't expose services running as local system to any thing outside of the local machine's firewall. Service accounts.

(And before /. queues up the "but linux" how many of you would be ok with running webappX as root and exposing it to the www?)

Re:Yuh huh

[GameboyRMH]

I can't wait until HTML5 replaces them both.

Re:Yuh huh

[KiloByte]

You see, somehow this isn't an issue on other OSes. Why? Because there's an unified update mechanism that can be used by any program.

In addition, most of available software is packaged in a big repository with security support, and if you use third-party repositories, they can use the mechanism as well. On Windows, though, every program has to implement its own update -- some do, like Firefox, Thunderbird, WinAmp or Java, but the vast majority lacks it. And even those few with an auto-update function have it in an inconsistent matter, requiring user intervention as well.

So your boss was right, Bill Gates' mother does have some guilt for the intrusion into your server.

Re:Yuh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess, Microsoft are just ready to offer the solution in the form of Silverlight, right?

Leave it to Slashdot commenters to be able to make a story about the abundance of Adobe Flash vulnerabilities into something that somehow is Microsofts fault. Impressive. If I understand you correctly, Microsofts fault here in your mind is that this has to be a planted story? Yay.. because, I mean, who have ever heard of Flash vulnerabilities?

Re:Yuh huh

[bruce_the_loon]

On a Linux or BSD -style system, WebBoard would be a package like any other and would be regularly updated as part of your routine system maintainence.

Maybe. If they've made a package available, in a repo that you use, and issue updates. The number of OSS apps I see that direct you to SVN or CVS for the latest fixes, and release a .2 every year or so, is a little scary. And annoying.

Otherwise if you've installed from source, or like most PHP apps these days, unpacked the tar.gz into the htdocs folder and run install.php from your browser, you're in the same mire as the Windows boys.

Re:Yuh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Applications? What about OSes that don't stop the applications from doing stupid things? Like running past the end of a buffer and shitting all over your executable code? The application should crash because the OS said fuck no you can't do that. The application should check it's bounds to prevent the application from crashing not to do the OS's job to prevent the entire system from being owned. If you don't think it's the OS's job to manage memory your standards are a bit low.

Seriously click ===> NX_bit and find out what Windows has been fucking up for ages.

Don't get me wrong, there are lots of shitty applications but don't exclude the OS from blame. Microsoft has been blaming 3rd party applications since the DOS era when they actually could have made the case.

Like I said applications aren't off the hook. There are plenty of free tools out there to tell you how fucked up and stupid bad you are at coding. As a developer you should use them until you reach the conceited conclusion that you're better at it than the tools are. Oh, I'm sorry if your expensive development suite doesn't provide these tools out of the box but did I mention they're free?

Re:Yuh huh

[bvankuik]

This is a problem with OSes like Linux as well. Webbased software like Wordpress is often not packaged. Thus when it is installed, you need to make sure to subscribe yourself to the particular mailinglist to receive update notifications. Also, you will need to subscribe to your regular security mailinglist because the vendor will not always tell you pronto when vulnerabilities are found.

The situation described by the orginal parent is partly valid for Linux as well.

Re:Yuh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm... Wordpress is here. And the security team has to watch vulnerability disclosure lists, precisely so you don't have to. That's the advantage of using packaged software. The time gap is small enough that there is little benefit in doing that work yourself -- and the security team has way better skills than your average sysadmin.

A "vendor" that does not respond to published vulnerabilities is one no one would take seriously. If you use a distribution which does that, drop it immediately!

Re:Yuh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

At work we had a Windows Server 2008 hacked. It was killing the whole network sending spam and trying to infect other machines on our AD. Our boss was already blaming Bill Gate's mother ... On a closer inspection, the problem was discovered. The system was running a quite old version of WebBoard (a system for collaboration, which was developed originally by O'Reilly). The firewall has the port 8080 open to allow users to connect. Some people discovered the open port, found out that WebBoard was running, and took advantage of the vulnerability to upload and run malicious code on the server. Because WebBoard is a service, running as the System account, you can imagine what happened there.

Which is why smart people don't use IIS for public-facing servers - especially not popular packages which make attractive targets.

Apache, running as a non-root user combined with SELinux to minimize damage if it does get broken combined with least privilege, is a far better choice - and not because it's "not Microsoft".

Re:Yuh huh

[El Lobo]

Hmm... WebBoard is an independent server Einstein. It doesn't use IIS (or any other web server) for anything.

Re:Yuh huh

[mlts]

I think this is an issue that affects all operating systems essentially:

There needs to be a central place for programs to check versions, then be directed to their repositories. The checking would be done in SSL, the version numbers placed on the repositories would be signed.

And this doesn't have to be centralized. As part of a package's manifest, it would have a URL that the updater daemon would use and pull a signed list of latest versions. If the program isn't the latest, the OS update utility would be able to find where exactly to go (perhaps even supporting torrents) and grab the latest rpm, .deb, .msp/.msi, .installp, or tarball.

Of course, the update daemon can be configured to only check an internal repository. This is VITAL when it comes to staging upgrades, so a production machine doesn't slurp some update from a repository, eat its spleen and take a dirt nap, taking your production webserver with it.

This can also be multiplatform. This allows an updater on the staging server to check Linux packages on internal machines, grab all that need updated and store them in a mirror, then go out and grab the OS X ones, then the Windows ones, and whatever operating systems are in use. Then once the sysadmin approves the upgrade, the machines internally do the rest of the work.

Re:Yuh huh

[clone53421]

“It’s a feature, not a bug.”

Centralised Updating

[Anonymous Coward]

Enforced centralised updating for Adobe products with GP, without local admin rights is what we need (like WSUS).

This is about finding a common infection point

[fprintf]

With the recent popularity of Apple products and other internet surfing enabled devices, this is all about infecting the most machines possible. Previously that was easily accomplished by targeting the most popular devices - Windows PCs. But now there are even more targets available and most of them run Adobe Reader and Flash.

What happens to all the folks (us?) who have been gloating over the security of our Macs, Linux, smartphones etc. when these apps get broken? Time to eat crow?

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[larry bagina]

iphones and other internet-enabled devices don't have flash or acrobat. Or if they do have flash, it's the stripped down ARM version.

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[El Capitaine]

No, what will happen is that the Macs, Linux, smartphones, etc. will still be praised as incredibly secure, and it will just be Adobe's fault. Nobody likes to take the blame or admit that their favorite platform isn't what they said it was, but everyone loves to insult Flash.

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[oahazmatt]

What happens to all the folks (us?) who have been gloating over the security of our Macs, Linux, smartphones etc. when these apps get broken? Time to eat crow?

Yes.

The moment you believe securing your system is not an issue, that's exactly when it becomes an issue.

As Windows and Mac user, I don't trust either of my systems to be any more secure out-of-the-box than I can throw them. You don't get to ignore any responsibility for your system's security and have the privilege of being a link-clicking blind-downloader simply because you picked the "more secure" computer.

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[wizardforce]

What happens to all the folks (us?) who have been gloating over the security of our Macs, Linux, smartphones etc. when these apps get broken? Time to eat crow?

I would imagine that if Flash etc. became poor enough in terms of security we'd see more attention on projects like Gnash.

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[causality]

What happens to all the folks (us?) who have been gloating over the security of our Macs, Linux, smartphones etc. when these apps get broken? Time to eat crow?

I would imagine that if Flash etc. became poor enough in terms of security we'd see more attention on projects like Gnash.

No joke. Even if they are absolutely equally secure, Gnash provides source code. You can build that source with SSP (or equivalent). You can also build it as PIC and apply many other restrictions with a PaX and/or Grsecurity kernel. All of these will reduce the chances that a known vulnerability will lead to a successful exploit. Specifically, a known vulnerability that would normally allow an attacker to run arbitrary code stands a good chance of merely crashing the application.

You just don't have options like this with binary blobs. I really would like to see more development of Gnash, as it seems that Adobe Flash is on a downhill course in terms of security and will continue to be a problem. Source code is about freedom and control. With such control, you can take steps to manage a risk even if you cannot perfectly mitigate it.

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[Paradigm_Complex]

What happens to all the folks (us?) who have been gloating over the security of our Macs, Linux, smartphones etc. when these apps get broken? Time to eat crow?

I can't speak for Macs or smartphones (who gloats over the security of smartphones? Things like the amount of iphone jailbreaking going on or the Tmobile sidekick crash make it pretty clear smartphones have issues...), but Linux is still more secure the Windows in this respect. There's numerous ways to isolate the damage that could be done from a hole in flash. MAC like SELinux or AppArmor are perfect for this, and Windows still doesn't have a competent MAC implementation (MIC is insufficient). There's ways to sandbox firefox without MAC, too, such as setting everything up to sudo to another user every time firefox is called. There's a LOT of ways to deal with this.

Now, all of these take some work on the user's part. Stupid/lazy Windows users can be pwned just as badly as stupid/lazy Linux people. But it's not as though a competent individual is just as badly off on both platforms... Linux has solutions for dealing with untrusted things like flash where Windows does not. If you actually and actively care about security, you can continue to gloat about Linux's superiority in this respect. If you're too lazy to take security seriously, you can be pwned on both counts.

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[mister_playboy]

Seeing as it's a closed source plugin that you can't fix yourself... what else can you do but complain about it?

It's also hard to argue that Flash on every platform other than 32-bit Windows is anything but badly coded software.

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[Hurricane78]

Well, I don’t see that malware running on my custom-compiled system with unsupported 64-bit alpha of Flash anytime soon. ^^

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[mrclisdue]

Kudos to you: very well put.

cheers,

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[stewbacca]

They keep saying it, but it hasn't happened. How popular does my Mac OS have to get before I see real threat? How popular do smart phones have to become before a real threat? Or, perhaps the best way to infect the most machines is to attack the easiest to exploit, not the most prevalent.

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[Zero__Kelvin]

"What happens to all the folks (us?) who have been gloating over the security of our Macs, Linux, smartphones etc. when these apps get broken? Time to eat crow?"

Not until our kernel gets its own web browser too ;-)

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[chrismeidinger]

That's not accurate. Even if you have a common infection point, the same payload doesn't run on Win, OSX and *NIX. The interesting bit for attackers is the fact that .swf and .pdf files traverse both corporate and home security pretty easily. It requires deep inspection to find issues in those files beyond simple pattern matching. So the infection rate - given a constant payload - is higher that with many other attacks that need to be initiated from outside the organization.

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[Zontar The Mindless]

One of the managers in our office just bought an iPhone that came with Acrobat reader pre-installed.

Thanks for playing, though.

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[Tubal-Cain]

Seeing as it's a closed source plugin that you can't fix yourself... what else can you do but complain about it?

Support Gnash/Swfdec?

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[CodeBuster]

There are other issues which make security more than simply a technical problem in commercial closed source products like Flash. Sometimes a bug is not fixed because management feels that "nobody cares" or "users won't notice" and so they order the devs to ignore it to "cut costs" and "save money". At other times, security is thought (by managers) to make the product "user unfriendly" or "too hard" to use. I have heard of projects where the devs were deliberately ordered to remove security features because they weren't "easy to use". This is one area where open source projects like Linux consistently do better (i.e. quality and security) whereas closed source products tend to get the chrome and polish done, but fail the quality and security tests. Some rare companies, Apple being the canonical example, do both well but then it sure doesn't come cheap.

Re:This is about finding a common infection point

[mlts]

Try to get a standard on an alternative technology that has been around a while? If Oracle could update Java so it had better video processing, it could possibly go head to head with Flash for movies. Unlike Flash, Java has a decent security model so sandboxed stuff won't be jumping out to execute crap as a user, or perhaps as a superuser.

Also, unlike Flash, Java runs almost anywhere. Yes, there are JVM issues, but a Java applet can be coded to run on any platform. The only platform it doesn't work on that is mainstream is a non jailbroken iPhone (jailbroken ones run it happily.) And there are utilities like alcheMo to natively port bytecode to BREW.

Oracle really should see about throwing some serious development man-hours at JMF and making something that can go head to head with Flash. This would be great because if Java takes back the standard role, it means one less extension that can be compromised.

Another to do is consider running a browser that separates add-ons from the user context. IE8 does this by running things in a restricted mode. Chrome goes one step better and has the add-ons run essentially in a VM.

Of course, the most secure way of all is to run your Web browsing in a virtual machine (and use snapshots to roll back when done, dropping all changes), with the Web browser and its add-ons running as an unpriviliged user (no UAC or sudo access). This way, malicious software will have to get the user context in the VM, get to administrator, find a hole in the hypervisor, then find a way to get to some context in the host OS, which is a daunting task.

Quick fixes won't be enough.

[sznupi]

People often just don't update Flash much. It's a little better for Adobe Reader from what I see; but just a little - automatic updates are treated more like a nuisance to hide, it seems.

Overall - good riddance. Simple & small PDF readers with scripting disabled are all almost anybody needs anyway. As for Flash - everybody here keeps whitelists of pages already, right? And perhaps those few whitelisted ones will feel the need to enable HTML5 video tag sooner.

Re:Quick fixes won't be enough.

[dgatwood]

Even if they updated regularly, it would still be an easy target. Something like six of the top ten browser crasher bugs are in Flash plug-ins. There are so many crasher bugs that nobody can even keep count. When you realize that every single one of those is probably an exploitable attack vector, you quickly understand why I use click2flash. Swiss cheese belongs on sandwiches, not on the public Internet....

Re:Quick fixes won't be enough.

[psydeshow]

People often just don't update Flash much.

Except that Flash can be made to auto-update since around version 8.

So no, people don't update Flash. It updates itself!

Re:Quick fixes won't be enough.

[Jeng]

You might update, but "people" are stupid and do not.
"People" tend to minimize or close anything that pops up in between start up and opening the app that one started the computer to use. Whether it be windows update, virus scan update, or updates of nagging software. Of those three the updates of nagging software will be the most likely to just be closed without any update taking place.

Re:Quick fixes won't be enough.

[babybird]

Especially when the updates break functionality that previous versions had, or when the newer versions are a lot more bloated and gobble up significantly more system resources as seen with Flash 10 vs. Flash 9. If so many sites didn't explicitly deny themselves to work properly without Flash 10, I'd be much happier still running Flash 9 as 10 doesn't really add anything that I as a user care about. Nearly every popular site that requires Flash 10 today would work perfectly fine with Flash 9 if it didn't explicitly check and deny itself from working.

isn't Flash content in the cloud?

[alen]

i expect a fix in 5 minutes. everyone knows that anything delivered from the cloud is highly secure and easy to fix if problems arise

WTF

[tylersoze]

Could someone please explain to me why I have to be worried about $#! document viewer compromising my system? WTF Adobe!? Glad I don't have to use it to read PDF's anymore. Thank you OS X for builtin support.

Re:WTF

[Abcd1234]

Don't be silly, buffer overflows can happen anywhere. Hell, IE has been compromised thanks to a b0rked JPEG decoder in GDI+, ffs.

That said, Adobe has certainly made their job harder by including a full-blown ECMAScript engine in acroread. But even without that, the ubiquity of Flash and Reader makes them ideal targets for hackers, thus further illustrating why software monoculture is a bad thing.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it was just a document viewer, then someone got the bright idea to add Javascript to it.

Re:WTF

[Leomania]

I'm much more of a hardware (chip) guy than I'll ever be a software guy. I'd like to ask (honestly), how can Flash remain such a security nightmare? After all this time, all of the preceding versions of flash, how can vulnerabilities continue to be found in light of more scrutiny by the developers (code audits, bounds checkers, etc.)? I realize no complex piece of software is bug-free, but Flash (and of course, Acrobat Reader) have continuous vulnerability discoveries... must it be so forevermore?

Re:WTF

[Yvan256]

I'm with you on built-in Mac OS X support. It can "print" PDF files and read them as easily as PNG or JPEG files. I hope Apple never adds support for scripting in their PDF decoder.

Re:WTF

[Abcd1234]

Your argument would make sense if Flash was a product in maintenance mode, where no new substantial development was being done, and only bug fixes and security enhancements were being applied. But, of course, that's not at all the case. New features, performance enhancements, and god knows what else, show up in every rev of Flash, and that means new potential security vulnerabilities.

Hell, by your argument, Firefox should be virtually bug free by now...

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, by your argument, Firefox should be virtually bug free by now...

My experience has been that it is...

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny, I'm seeing 267 open bugs in the 3.5 branch of Firefox in their Bugzilla and another 270 in the 1.9.1 renderer that it uses. Between the two, approximately 100 are classified as critical.

(Not to bash Firefox, as I certainly appreciate all of the hard work many people have put into it - but it's big, complex software and it's by no means bug free)

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Built in support with baked in flaws! You do realize that Adobe support is a FULL FLEDGED ADOBE INSTALL ON any APPLE PC, right?

Re:WTF

[stewbacca]

First of all, "nightmare" is hyperbole. Maybe it isn't as bad as Chicken Little says.

Re:WTF

[stewbacca]

I think they are assuming that exploits in Adobe Acrobat Reader would not work if you use OSX Preview instead. Even though they view the same file, the way they go about it may (maybe, I don't know) prevent an exploit from working on Preview.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no Adobe software in Preview. It's Apple's own PDF decoder. In fact, Quartz is based on postscript, so PDF is just a sub-set of the whole thing.

Re:WTF

[tylersoze]

Well I certainly understand that, but why aren't hackers targeting Notepad then? That's definitely a software monoculture. ;) How much more complex is it parsing ASCII than a PDF format? Is there anything inherent in the PDF format that makes software implementations inherently more buggy, other than just the simple fact it's a more complex format? Or does Adobe just suck? I can understand something like JPG where you have compression vs a simple uncompressed image format which should be trivial to guard against buffer overflows.

Re:WTF

[gbutler69]

PDF includes compression. PDF includes script. PDF includes a command language (not just mark-up). Hell, PDF includes JPG.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Irony... ...buffer overflows can happen anywhere. Adobe has certainly made their job harder by including a full-blown ECMAScript engine in acroread.

A vulnerability in Sept used a flaw in that scripting language to execute arbitrary code.

A vulnerability in Feb used a JavaScript fragment imbedded in a PDF file.

[there are probably more examples, but these make my point]

The problem is not that "buffer overflows can happen anywhere"; the problem is that creeping featuritis by Adobe is adding all sorts of extraneous capabilities (and vulnerabilities) to Acrobat and PDF formats. Why do I need all that shit in a document viewer?

This is precisely the reason that Windows became such a malware magnet. In the name of adding ever more functionality to garner more market share they started adding things that were stupid. Hell, people told them they were stupid when they discussed adding them but they still did it.

Re:WTF

[Abcd1234]

How much more complex is it parsing ASCII than a PDF format?

*Vastly*. At it's core, PDF is compressed PostScript, and PostScript is a turing complete functional programming language. On top of that, you have complex font handling and embedding, the rendering core itself, image handling, etc, etc. That, in and of itself, makes for a pretty large surface area that could be exploited. 'course, for good or ill, Adobe then threw ECMAScript, PDF Forms, annotations, and a whole raft of other functionality on top of that.

Re:WTF

[tylersoze]

Looking at the wiki page describing PDF it may not be Turing complete as it only includes a subset of Postscript which excludes if and loop statements.

Re:WTF

[mlts]

If I could ask for one thing with Flash, I wish it had a security model where on operating systems that supported it, it could run the foreign .swf containers either jailed or with highly restricted permissions. For example, a YouTube vid might need access to a shared object to set video preferences, but it needs no access other than that, or perhaps a way to connect back to YouTube to rate stuff or get the next video in a series.

This isn't hard in Windows. IIRC, one can create a restricted hToken, then use CreateProcessAsUser and have the child instance of whatever add-on do the heavy lifting. It isn't as elegant as a BSD jail, but it keeps stuff out of the user context, and you can lock a child process from touching the Registry or the filesystem.

Re:WTF

[clone53421]

“Virtually” bug-free may still be an appropriate description of my user experience if the bugs that remain in the application are only very rarely ever encountered.

Acrobat and Flash

[Enderandrew]

Acrobat and Flash vulnerabilities were two of the biggest issues I saw in 2009, even more than Office vulnerabilities.

For one, Office only seems to hit the enterprise sector, and most enterprise users have at least some security. Office is more likely to be patched by users, and there were fewer vulnerabilities.

Most users don't have the latest version of Acrobat or Flash. They effect home and enterprise users.

Even more alarming, it seems that Flash vulnerabilities are one of the biggest weaknesses on Mac and Linux, where security is an after-thought.

For Windows users, I often recommend they swap Acrobat with a free reader like Sumo or Foxit, which is smaller, faster, and has less vulnerabilities. Sadly, there aren't many GOOD Flash alternatives.

I really hope HTML 5 phases out the popularity of Flash.

Re:Acrobat and Flash

[stimuli_ii]

"Sadly, there aren't many GOOD Flash alternatives"

How about Silverlight or Moonlight?

Re:Acrobat and Flash

[Nadaka]

he said GOOD alternatives. Silverlight and Moonlight are not.

Whatever happened to applets and javascript?

Re:Acrobat and Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

So what are these flash exploits capable of doing on a Linux box? Haven't heard any instances of this happening to any of my Linux using friends yet. Just FUD?

Re:Acrobat and Flash

[McBeer]

Whatever happened to applets and javascript?

Applets got a (mostly undeserved) reputation for being slow and unwieldy and a (mostly deserved) reputation for having security/runtime issues. Javascript lacks a ton of the features flash/silverlight have, isn't really all that fast, and making it cross browser compatible can be a real bear.

Whats the problem with Silverlight other then you don't like the company that made it? It's fast, secure, full featured, and works just fine in all the browsers people actually use.

Re:Acrobat and Flash

[Abcd1234]

Wait, because, unlike Silverlight and Flash, Applets and Javascript are somehow magically free of vulnerabilities?

Careful, your prejudices are showing...

Re:Acrobat and Flash

[stimuli_ii]

Depends on what your definition of GOOD is I guess.

My opinion is that Flash is not the best RIA product out there. It just has the most installations.

Re:Acrobat and Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he meant an alternative implementation of Flash not an alternative technology. There's Gnash and Swfdec, but neither is nearly 100% compatible.

Re:Acrobat and Flash

[Enderandrew]

That is what I meant. For a user, if they want to go to Youtube, they can't simply uninstall Flash and make the site work with Silverlight.

Flash is so utterly predominant on the web, that most users feel it is necessity.

Re:Acrobat and Flash

[Nadaka]

What the hell are you talking about? I said NOTHING about vulnerabilities. Perhaps it is your prejudices that are showing.

Silverlight fails at cross platform use, and can break previously working and unrelated software when installed. Moonlight is a half implementation of Silverlight that cant even get its errors right. Applets and javascript play nicely in comparison, though javascript is a pain in the ass with its browser incompatibility issues.

Re:Acrobat and Flash

[Abcd1234]

What the hell are you talking about? I said NOTHING about vulnerabilities. Perhaps it is your prejudices that are showing.

Well, given the article is about *security vulnerabilities*, it stands to reason that when one is discussing viable replacements for Flash, one might be specifically referring to, you know, security vulnerabilities.

Re:Acrobat and Flash

[ascari]

Why should I automatically assume that McAfee's prediction is correct? I thought TFA was pretty weak on justifications. Personally, I suspect (predict?) that the top security threats in 2010 will be the same ones as in 2009, 2008 and so on i.e. things like slack coding and QA practices, bad design, poorly implemented security policies, end user gullibility etc. No real reason to assume Adobe or MS or Apple are any better or worse than they were last year.

Re:Acrobat and Flash

[ascari]

Gimme a good old Active-X control any day! :-)

Re:Acrobat and Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

So what are these flash exploits capable of doing on a Linux box? Haven't heard any instances of this happening to any of my Linux using friends yet. Just FUD?

Of course it's just FUD. It's what MS fanbois tell themselves so they feel less like idiots for choosing windos.

64-bit windows safe

[Anonymous Coward]

64-bit windows isn't a target of flash virus :)

Do the hacks exploit buffer overflow issues?

[master_p]

Do the hacks exploit buffer overflow or wilder pointer issues? anyone knows?

Re:Do the hacks exploit buffer overflow issues?

[psydeshow]

The hacks in Flash are often social engineering tricks to get at files, camera, microphone... though I think the most growth will be enabled by the excellent support for socket communication in today's actionscript. In other words, good old-fashioned cross-site-scripting.

i can has FOSS Flash Replacement?

[AP31R0N]

It's time to start seriously chipping away at Adobe's stranglehold on multimedia. Or at least give it some serious competition that will inspire them to work harder.

As someone else has mentioned, this might be HTML 5's time to step up.

Re:i can has FOSS Flash Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, one day html 5 will replace flash...

can i ask if you know the slightest thing about that which you speak of? talk about picking yourself a lost cause mate

save your moaning till flash dominates each and every mobile phone that is on the market. :)

How are Linux users affected by this?

[Nutria]

Are there Flash-based keyloggers or bots?

Re:How are Linux users affected by this?

[GameboyRMH]

I actually did a little research on this, and assuming Flash and Adobe Reader vulnerabilities allow code to be executed like in Windows, there is a possibility of setting up a keylogger or bot. Of course, as long as the exploited app isn't running with root permissions (which would only happen if you were logged in as root), it could only infect one user profile and it would be trivial to remove (it would only be able to run on login or X session start by say, putting itself in ~/.profile, ~/.kde/autostart or ~/.config/autostart), but if you don't notice what's going on, a keylogger or bot could run quite happily in the background.

Of course it could also attempt to repeatedly ask for root permissions using gksudo/kdesu prompts until you put your password in. A smart user would switch to a terminal, kill the offending process, and hunt it down like a dog, but Granny on her Ubuntu machine might just enter her password to make the prompt go away, and then you'll have a real problem on your hands.

Re:How are Linux users affected by this?

[Nutria]

assuming Flash and Adobe Reader vulnerabilities allow code to be executed like in Windows

Native code (which is what your comment implies, and means you'd have to "know your target", have 3 different payloads -- one each for Windows, OSX and Linux -- and a very intelligent installer), or interpreted code running in the Flash engine which would go away as soon as you close your browser (which I rarely do)?

Re:How are Linux users affected by this?

[GameboyRMH]

The viruses targeted at Windows PCs are able to run native code, so I'm assuming that if the Linux versions of Flash and AR have similar vulnerabilities, they'd be able to execute native code as well.

And the link is a pdf?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not clicking on that one!

Oh, the irony!

[Locke2005]

"We predict that Acrobat Reader will be the top hacker target in 2010, and that is why we are distributing our report in a format that can only be viewed by using Acrobat Reader!"

Re:Oh, the irony!

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

"We predict that Acrobat Reader will be the top hacker target in 2010, and that is why we are distributing our report in a format that can only be viewed by using Acrobat Reader!"

It seems to be a standard PDF file that opens just fine in other PDF readers. What did you try opening it with? Or do you mean because you don't know there are other PDF readers you, personally, have to use Acrobat Reader?

Re:Oh, the irony!

[nacturation]

"We predict that Acrobat Reader will be the top hacker target in 2010, and that is why we are distributing our report in a format that can only be viewed by using Acrobat Reader!"

Fortunately this vendor (who conveniently sells security products) allowed us to view their press release on Slashdot using HTML.

Re:Oh, the irony!

[Anonymous Coward]

Really ironic is, do you believe the tools of them, the fairly expensive products actually checks swf files heuristically for malicious content or they just do (insert checksum of swf file of that russian gang) checks?

Does their tool say "hmm, this thing wasn't on startup until user had that mysterious swf file in his browser cache which does mysterious system calls right after loading?" That is the level of heuristics needed if they ship a realtime virus checker in 2009/2010. The scene is _that_ bad and it will get uglier especially in XXX land when Adobe Flash Streaming gets picked up by them.

Oh the irony

[Anonymous Coward]

McAfee reports that PDF attacks are going to be tops in the upcoming year by releasing reports in PDF form. Maybe they're trying to collect stats on who is vulnerable...

New Year Forecasts

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish the media would spend as much time reviewing the forecasts from the previous year as they do reporting what experts think will happen next year. I predict the big security issue for 2010 will be... annoying. And profitable for the security industry, even for the expert who said the problem will be something else.

There is already a solution

[jrozzi]

Developers can stop using flash and end-users should uninstall it. There is already a solution out there and it is called javascript. 90% of the things you can do in flash can easily be done using javascript, jquery, or some other javascript framework. For the remaining 10%, HTML 5 will be able to handle most of it (canvas tag, videos, better form support, etc), and the remainder of things that javascript/html can't do that flash can do (if there is anything), is not even worth implementing in a website. Since javascript and HTML is all open and much easier to work with, I foresee flash and silverlight on the decline. This especially holds true when HTML 5 is fully supported in most people's browsers.

Re:There is already a solution

[PerfectionLost]

Flash games are the only things you can't easily reproduce in javascript. I know my siblings (ranging from the age of 4-15) are the source of most of my parents computer woes. They play many flash based games, and I assume that is the source of a lot of their issues.

Re:There is already a solution

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

There is already a solution out there and it is called javascript. 90% of the things you can do in flash can easily be done using javascript, jquery, or some other javascript framework.

The problem with your statement is you assume the Flash content creators are programmers with enough free time. In reality, many of them have degrees in communications or visual arts or are just programmers who want a quick and easy tool for throwing together some quick video/UI content for the Web. From what I've seen, the decently made tools to create such content are mostly created by Adobe and focused on Flash. Unless a company steps up and creates equivalent tools for HTML5 and javascript and those tools gain a significant market share and momentum and ecosystem, I see Flash remaining dominant, with MS gobbling up a smaller share.

Re:There is already a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I admit to not knowing much about javascript, but can it do youtube style video? That type of video (from many different sites) constitutes the majority of my use of Flash.

Re:There is already a solution

[clone53421]

In HTML 5, yes.

Re:There is already a solution

[eigenstates]

This uses the Quicktime libraries, for those what are interested.

Re:There is already a solution

[eigenstates]

Google "HTML 5 games".

http://www.benjoffe.com/code/games/torus/

Re:There is already a solution

[PerfectionLost]

Not saying it's not going to happen. What I am saying is that it is that its not mainstream yet.

Re:There is already a solution

[eigenstates]

"can't easily reproduce"
[link] easily reproduced.

Acceptance is a different story. That tetris makes a compelling model for a game designer. It should also be compelling for a project manager. Sure it's only Safari, Mozilla, Opera and Chrome at this point but there is hope.

Re:There is already a solution

[PerfectionLost]

http://www.addictinggames.com/

Reproduce this. Easily. Stuff like this is the competition. The site will post many new games a week. This is largely due to something akin to the networking effect with the number of developers on hand.

I saw ben joffe's 2-d shooter. Pretty slick. So is doom in flash:

http://www.kongregate.com/games/mike_id/doom-1

The frame rate is a bit better in flash on my crappy laptop.

HTML 5 is getting there, but it is not there yet.

Re:There is already a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/creating-pseudo-3d-games-with-html-5-can-1/

http://devfiles.myopera.com/articles/650/step_4_enemies.htm

Framerate is pretty consistent on my laptop. With the addition of the whole OpenGL API coming with HTML5 as well, it is just as far as Flash minus the need for a plugin wich is in some eyes a step ahead..

Re:There is already a solution

[mad.frog]

Yeah, I hear JavaScript has great video codec support. And webcam/mic support. And audio playback support. And all that is pretty much uniform across major browsers.

selling a product

[bcrowell]

McAfee, of course, has a product to sell.

For Adobe Reader, the solution is really easy. Either install something faster and more secure as your browser's PDF plugin, or disable javascript in Adobe Reader. All the security vulnerabilities in AR have been related to javascript, which is a feature that almost nobody wants or needs in pdf files anyway.

I'm skeptical about any risk from flash. Flash apps run in a sandbox. Are they referring to things like malicious facebook apps? That seems like a relatively minor concern to me. Sure, it would be embarrassing to have all your facebook friends get spam from you, but the potential damage seems relatively minor. It can't take over your machine, can't access your banking info, etc. And of course flashblock, which I would never be without in any case, will protect you from running untrusted flash apps on random webpages that you hit.

Re:selling a product

[thsths]

> I'm skeptical about any risk from flash. Flash apps run in a sandbox.

Flash apps should run in a sandbox - but the recent vulnerabilities are ways to break out of the sandbox.

Of course any plugin should run in a sandbox, but I think only Google Chrome actually does that. It may be a consequence of the Radioactive X disaster - just download and execute anything - which Microsoft introduced in the late 90s.

Preferred way to update Flash?

[Exp315]

So how do we keep Flash updated, assuming that Adobe tries to keep it patched? Is there a better way than going to Adobe's website and downloading a new version and installing it manually?

"Flash" is often sold.

[Errol backfiring]

As long as IT salesmen sell "flashy" sites and bleat that it is professional to put a flash lock on your site, developers will have to build it.

As you already say that most things can be done in javascript, I don't see that HTML5 support would hurt the use of flash.

What Adobe needs is...

[mswhippingboy]

• Automatic code verification to stop nefarious ECMAScript code.
• The script should run within a "sandbox" so it can't inflict damage on your system.
• All memory should be allocated from within the Flash runtime so buffer overflows can't happen.

Oh wait... Java applets already do all this.. maybe we just need to dump flash!

I'll wait while the Java bashing commences. :)

What are you going to target...

[SuperKendall]

Even more alarming, it seems that Flash vulnerabilities are one of the biggest weaknesses on Mac and Linux, where security is an after-thought.

In what way is security an "afterthought" on these systems? Both have stronger measures to keep exploits from infecting the core system than Windows7. Both have excellent patching mechanisms that consumers use regularly.

Furthermore, let's say you are a virus writer, and you take advantage of a Flash exploit. OK, now you have native code running - just which system calls are you going to start making? Linux? Mac? Hardly.

Just like in the past, Flash exploits will be something Windows users have to worry about while Linux and Mac users just sit back and shake heads that so many people put up with the problems of an overly large monoculture.

Re:What are you going to target...

[LOLLinux]

Just like in the past, Flash exploits will be something Windows users have to worry about while Linux and Mac users just sit back and shake heads that so many people put up with the problems of an overly large monoculture.

lolwut?

Re:What are you going to target...

[Enderandrew]

The users aren't as focused on security because the OS is seen as traditionally secure. I love Linux. I advocate Linux as a safer way to browse the web.

Flash exploits on a web site are going to target Windows, as opposed to the small Linux market.

However, Flash exploits do exist.

My original point is that this is an odd prediction saying that Flash will become an issue in 2010, when I already think it was the biggest issue in 2009.

Re:What are you going to target...

[babybird]

In what way is security an "afterthought" on these systems? ...
...something Windows users have to worry about while Linux and Mac users just sit back and shake heads....

Really? Do you need it spelled out to you? Because you summed it up quite succinctly right there in your own post.

Re:What are you going to target...

[drinkypoo]

In what way is security an "afterthought" on these systems? Both have stronger measures to keep exploits from infecting the core system than Windows7.

Is that really true? Both have inferior ASLR to Windows 7, for example.

Both have excellent patching mechanisms that consumers use regularly.

I don't see any way in which Apple's patching mechanism is superior to Windows'. Also, the way Apple uses it is inadequate; for example, they are very bad about updating OSS components of the OS, and you will find tragically old versions of perl libraries &c.

Furthermore, let's say you are a virus writer, and you take advantage of a Flash exploit. OK, now you have native code running - just which system calls are you going to start making? Linux? Mac? Hardly.

AFAICT this is the only meat in your comment sandwich.

If Adobe doesn't do cleanup, God help us

[Ilgaz]

Besides couple of security issues which are only fixed by disabling javascript in Adobe Reader EXISTS today, scheduled to be fixed in 15 days, here are 2 examples of the culture who actually develops/packages the OS X version.

First, this is what you will see in your system.log, whatever browser you use:
[0x0-0x1f01f].com.operasoftware.Opera[157]: Debugger() was called

This is the current flash, released just weeks ago. This is a packaging issue which nobody than a complete newbie would do. They forgot the damn debugger symbol in final binary they ship to millions. I also heard if you are a unlucky developer who has XCode open at the time when you go to a site featuring Flash, that "call" may actually break your own application's tests or running "from there". Amazingly stupid eh? This has been reported to Adobe by many people, users like me, Developers getting hit, Browser vendors/developers (guess who users contact&blame when they see browser name?) and they keep that debug symbol, even ignoring the latest chance to get rid of it weeks ago.

Want to see more? Here is a bug reported for ages, years, since early OS X days. Disk permissions broken while installing Flash. This is some amazing thing which even Apple is constantly bugged about and one of the perfectly valid excuses of "permission repairer" people on OS X land. Of course, as Apple really secured the permission repair process meaning hundreds of thousands of files will be validated before "repair", it also means 20 mins of a insanely system loading process even on highest end machine. I actually had access to a opto xeon (8x xeon) machine with 16 GB of RAM and just fired up "repair permissions" just to see if it is effected by CPU/RAM specs. No, still 13 mins.

No need to paste 10s of lines mentioning very stupidly wrongly set permissions. Note that it is also Apple to blame a little, perhaps Adobe could care if they had a bug report coming from @apple.com having thousands of user feedback attached. If I know Apple enough, they must have reported it to Adobe several times since their bug reporter department even finds shareware vendors from web once they spot that their application causes the issue. So, chances are high that these pathetic idiots also ignores Apple Inc. themselves reporting issues, no matter how trivial they are.

So, Adobe needs to do debugger symbol, permissions cleanups or they must get rid of the idiots who forgets a debugger symbol in a final product used by millions and can continue living their lives as nothing happened.

PS: Intego, Symantec... Do you read these stories? MCafee, do you read your own white papers? Is the code which will check the swf files on the fly up and running? Or are you still developing sigs for imaginary threats and impossible to run Word macros? Don't blame people when they call you snake oil seller if it is the case.

the REAL preferred target

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't they design the underlying Operating System to be immune to bugs in the applications. Or at least mitigate the effects and fail safely. Why about applications deliberately designed to exploit some defect in the Operating System to give crooks access to your online banking information. Who is legally responsible if my online bank account gets hacked ?

"'Cybercriminals have long picked on Microsoft products due to their popularity"

Really, I thought it was to do with the defective nature of the underlying Operating System, the one that was never designed with Internet security in mind.

Ironic...

[PNutts]

...that the report identifying Flash and Reader as the top vectors for 2010 is released in PDF format? At the risk of shouting "get off my lawn", what happened to good old plain text? The margins and logos did not add to the content. If you need all that then you probably should't have opened the PDF.

Silverlight couldn't be a Flash rival,thanks to MS

[Ilgaz]

As Silverlight's vendor was busy with feeding that once famous, now puppet idiot and his gang, their V2 dropped support for PowerPC macs which several people, including their market uses. No, PowerPC Macs didn't explode and reject to turn on when Apple announced Intel transition. They are in use by schools, people who keeps hardware which works, musicians (as 12" PB is still waiting for replacement), company terminals which does nothing than mailing and browsing.

In Silverlight V3, things getting even more complex as the Win32/64 Silverlight V3 has more features than OS X 32/64 one. Besides lack of real development tools on most popular Web designer tool (Mac, even in darkest days), now people will also need to be careful about the functions they use since some won't simply exist on Mac and possibly iPhone in future.

While mentioned, where is the iPhone/Symbian and even Windows Mobile support? None. In couple of months, Adobe&Nokia/Symbian Foundation starts rolling full Flash on portable devices. Windows Mobile "full flash" is already up and running on select handsets. Where is Silverlight for Win MO?

So, we will rely on MS, that same company and their sold out puppet's wannabe, lacking clones and replace Flash with it? The reason? Flash being more popular and coming to a point that everything having CPU will show our content?

Silverlight couldn't be rival to Flash. The issue is deep inside Microsoft, they are like 1980s IBM, they didn't convert themselves like Big Blue. They are all fine with 1990s "run windows or be second class citizen". Issue is, it doesn't work anymore. MSNBC shows only Silverlight? I go to CNN and use GPU/SMP accelerated Flash video. It would be MSNBC's loss, not mine.

Good luck with million hour video downgrades

[Ilgaz]

Unless you drug the IT departments of major media sites to go back to 1990s while H264 exists and H265 is being mentioned, HTML5 can't replace Flash.

It is the codec, the stupid fanaticism about "open codecs" to a degree of inviting Apple to jump to VP3 while they spent billions for H264 and the damn MP4 is being lite version of their OWN container, Mov.

For terabyte/petabyte sized media outlets, changing the codec means millions of real World money, not some "everything should be open" dreamer's money. In real World media, you even keep U-Matic players from 1970s maintained since in one occasion, you may need that archive tape from 1970s which haven't been digitized since it is part of your millions of hours archive which may be rarely (once a month) used.

HTML5 designers should really visit a major TV studio to see how things are really done, why you must do some insanely great progress to convince the people to switch, how TV and Video guys doesn't give a heck to "patent" problem as long as multiple vendors/documented standards/EBU etc. approvals exist.

Re:Good luck with million hour video downgrades

[EzInKy]

Perhaps if the holders of H264 patents granted royalty free rights for foss implementations of their codecs everyone could have their cake and eat it too.

Re:Good luck with million hour video downgrades

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break. If YouTube and others don't switch to HTML5 then they will fade away as they are replaced by better sites that do support HTML5.

That's just how it works. Doesn't matter if it costs them a ton of money to redo their stuff. If a better solution comes along then people will use it instead of crappy old systems.

Re:Good luck with million hour video downgrades

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they can use the tag with the files they do have and include a Flash player fallback for those who can't play those files using HTML5. See Video for Everybody for an example of using <video> with fallbacks. Of course, that has the problem that it involves two encodes, but you could just as easily do just the H.264 one (which you would already be doing for the Flash player anyway) and ignore browsers which only support Theora for <video> in order to push universal support of H.264 in HTML5. HTML5 is defined by the browser writers whose features are influenced by what their users want.

Re:Good luck with million hour video downgrades

[Hurricane78]

Actually, nobody cares if H.264 is “protected by anything”. We all have pulled stuff off of bittorrent, loaded some cracks, or had someone do that for us. I don’t remember seeing any computer without “illegal” software in the last 10 years. Even in companies!

Like with GIF.

The joke is, that YouTube already uses H.264. Someone at Google should offer a Firefox extension that simply implements H.264 for the video tag. :)

Re:Good luck with million hour video downgrades

[mswhippingboy]

I would think enough viewers switching to HTML5 sites because they get tired of reinstalling Windows due to viruses clobbering their machines might be just the drug to convince them.

Re:Silverlight couldn't be a Flash rival,thanks to

[stimuli_ii]

Color me skeptical but based on your reply I seriously doubt you would visit MSNBC's site because of the "puppet idiot and his gang" have a stake in it.

Nice rant all the same...

In other news....

[awyeah]

... 2010 is predicted to be the year of the Linux desktop.

get to work on gnash, then

[xiando]

flash expl0its just don't work with the free software Gnash flash player. I even submitted a bug report regarding one of them (yes, actually, it's listed at savannah). If you know C/C++ then please help hacking gnash so we free software users don't miss out on getting robbed by the apparently evil "criminal hackers".

It's probably a trojan

[bigtrike]

It's to help prove their point.

More ironic

[Nalez]

What is even MORE ironic is the whitepapers page http://mcafee.com/us/threat_center/white_paper.html that links to the article saying that adobe reader is going to be a upcoming threat in 2010, ALSO links to adobe reader!

Re:More ironic

[mswhippingboy]

Not ironic at all. If it weren't for a continuous stream of new viruses, McAfee would be out of business. What could spur more sales than a rash of new viruses. I'd be leery of clicking on any links from an anti-virus vendor site.

What's wrong with this idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say you have two computers. One is meant for everything but web surfing (except e-mail, bank sites, anything "sensitive"), and the other is meant solely for web surfing.

The first one can have flash "un"installed. The second one would have flash installed, and would be a "play" computer, where you surf, do web research, etc., without worrying about trashing your machine because a simple reinstall will cure everything without data loss on said machine. It could even be frozen, if that is your thing.

Tell me, what would be wrong with this idea?

Re:What's wrong with this idea?

[rantingkitten]

We can't even get the masses to understand things like "stop forwarding that stupid chain email" and "stop downloading and running every random thing you see on the web" and "those emails aren't really coming from your bank, okay?"

Now you want them to buy another computer and set up a KVM switch so they can use both on the same desk and actually remember which one is which and why they need to do this?

It's not going to happen.

Re:Rob Malda's tiny penis

[isama]

It's not about the size, it's about what you can do with it.

But I don't think you would understand.

Re:Silverlight couldn't be a Flash rival,thanks to

[McBeer]

their V2 dropped support for PowerPC macs which several people

So Silverlight can't possibly compete with flash because it doesn't support a hardware platform that hasn't been produced in 5 years now and already has negligible market share?

In Silverlight V3, things getting even more complex as the Win32/64 Silverlight V3 has more features than OS X 32/64 one

The only differences I'm aware of between mac and windows silverlight 3 are quite trivial

While mentioned, where is the iPhone/Symbian and even Windows Mobile support?

In the works . Admittedly, MSFT is dissapointingly behind schedule on this front.

Some of your complaints with Silverlight have merit. It isn't perfect yet, but it has made remarkable progress in the 2 years it has been out and most certailnly is a rival to flash. Flash had an 11 year head start and Silverlight already does just about everything it does and a few things better. Silverlight lags behind flash in market penetration and platform support, but at the rate it is going, it will catch up quite soon.

Bad headline

[stewbacca]

"Flash to be top hacker target" has a far different connotation than "we anticipate...".

Every now and then...

[stefaanh]

Every now and then, some writer tosses up some words like "Cybercriminals have long targeted xyz products due to their popularity". They don't. Criminals are lazy. They attack weak and easy spots first. It has nothing to do with "popularity". If it were, apache http servers would be the most attacked server application of them all - and they aren't.

Hacker? Nah...

[paxcoder]

Oooh you mean cracker! Phew, for a second there, I thought you thought they'll develop apps for it.

Nothing new...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have only been a victim of malware in windows twice. Both times it was through exploits on adobe reader.

I was happily navigating the internets and reading some datasheets when suddenly my google chrome tab with adobe reader went unresponsive. I was quick to kill it but not fast enough nonetheless. Seconds later I had swarms of randomly named processes hogging my CPU cycles and network bandwidth.

Turned out to be a rootkit.

Do you actually believe their claims?

[Ilgaz]

Let me say, as a TV professional, I know another TV who spent millions in infrasacture and software/servers to offer Windows Media DRM based paytv/prime content even while the entire scene, including their rivals called the idea "stupid" and they better stick with standards.

Today, their webmaster stares to 40% of hits coming from Apple OS X and iPhone OS X based clients while they have nothing to serve to them. The reason? MS took their toys and went home, they stopped maintaining Windows Media Player for OS X right after Intel switch which should make things a LOT easier (use same SSE optimisations, no endian issue etc).

If they sticked with MPEG standards, even under Windows, the possibilities were endless. iPhone client, OMA DRM MP4 (just like BBC), Flash (just pack the container).

Does MS talk about the amazing instability, performance and security issues if one Mac Intel user using a modern OS X installs their outdated Windows Media Player to their system? No? They even enjoy it is being one of the top 100 OS X downloads. Each unstable mac/os x is a "good thing" for some sick minds out there.

I would go with Applet based stuff rather than switching to a plugin from that company. The reason behind their backwardness on Symbian is very interesting since they promised Nokia a WORKING silverlight and Nokia agreed to them. It would be really funny if Nokia sued them for not delivering their promises right?

PS: Adobe didn't only continue to maintain their Flash plugin, they also accelerated it by enabling SMP/multi processing as low as dual G4 macs. That is how a professional company who is interested just in reach of marketshare and respect operates. For lots of people out there, MS is some pathetic company who can't even compile things for PowerPC, a 32/64bit CPU. While PowerPC is dead at Apple factories, it also means their code is tied to X86 and X86 only enhancements which is very alerting as embedded market recently exploded. Try to find X86 and SSE instructions on iPhone ARM :)

Re:Do you actually believe their claims?

[McBeer]

Between the rambling composition and dozens of typos, I'm really not sure what the point of that last post was. I'm guessing it was some sort of rebuttal to my assertation that th powerPC was a dead platform for desktop consumers.

MS is some pathetic company who can't even compile things for PowerPC, a 32/64bit CPU

Can't and won't are entirely different. Maintaining a branch of a software project takes time and money. Since very few people use powerPC now and even fewer will in the future, the project will be better off by devoting those resources to something that will actually be used. (Also, just FYI the number of bits the processor supports isn't really relevent to this discussion so you can probably skip typing it out each time :p )

Re:Do you actually believe their claims?

[colinrichardday]

It isn't just PPC

From the post to which you responded:

Today, their webmaster stares to 40% of hits coming from Apple OS X and iPhone OS X based clients while they have nothing to serve to them.

OK, it should have been "stares at" instead of "stares to", but how good is Silverlight on Mac OS X?

You can't wake up one day and upload h264 to sf

[Ilgaz]

Well, what I say is, VP3 is a freaking outdated piece of junk abandoned and got donated to open source community.

If Google has balls to donate the real deal (VP7,8) or even IF it is possible, things may change. Why IBM , big blue with army of lawyers couldn't open OS/2? Why some abandonware can't open their source but gives away free license instead? Why some can't? Because it is how such huge things work. All parties, including the companies, TV stations, TV industry organisations must agree that they will throw away billions of dollars worth know-how and formulas, methods just to make 1% or less happy.

Industry spent billions for H264 and they want their money back somehow. That is the idea. Do you really think some people, especially at .CN will really care about the intentions of opening the codec? They use open source freely and fail to credit/ship modifications even while that is the only thing open source folks want.

Flash will stay, what matters is the openness

[Ilgaz]

Even if Adobe rolls over and dies tomorrow, the Flash is so needed that some major .edus may give huge help to Gnash project to make it actually replace Flash, at least to the point until V10. It would be some service to the web and even World economy.

I can't imagine the price required to replace Flash on entire web including old sites and multi billion dollar occasional games industry which is dominated by Flash thanks to stupid Sun.

Besides people dreaming H264/AAC getting open, is the Flash open enough for an army of developers to replace it with Gnash? That is the real question. Not the "codecs" part, the actual protocol/file specs, everything minus the codecs.

How long will it take for them to move to Real Networks model? See, Helix is open, minus the codecs. Anyone can contribute and it works, millions of desktops, mobile handsets.

Re:Flash will stay, what matters is the openness

[mad.frog]

Well, you could start here:

http://hg.mozilla.org/tamarin-central

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/

Well, my prediction is Windows again

[Ilgaz]

Unless crime gangs all went to some course learning to code massively multi platform, the "issue" will basically put some .exe file to users computer and run it. It won't be some amazingly universal binary which runs on ARM/x86/PPC/MIPS and dozen of different operating systems.

I understand your sarcasm and it is really alerting that there are like 10% of market who believes their platform is something like NSA Terminals we see at movies but Flash exploit isn't the one which the real doomsday for OS X will come. It will be a real, working, specific designed worm/virus/whatever which will actually send itself to others. The next day, newspaper you read won't be on your doorstep as the multi xeon/quark/indesign workstation wasn't running a security solution or firewall since "it is OS X".

Of course, what does Mac AV companies code, what the hell they really check, what about unknown threats is another issue.

No, it doesn't!

[gbutler69]

Not on my platform. On yours, perhaps.

Re:No, it doesn't!

[eigenstates]

WebKit seems to use them.

Packaging...

[darkpixel2k]

They could start by releasing a *&^#@ MSI file for Windows and a deb/tar/rpm for Linux.

Currently I have to wade through a bunch of retarded forms and sign a corporate distribution agreement and wait a few hours so they will send me a link to an MSI so I can update flash.

Put an MSI on your home page that I can download in a few clicks and push out via Group Policy.

With a deb, I can update all the linux systems I manage using cssh, wget to grab the deb, and 'dpkg -i' to install.

If they're not willing to do that, they aren't being helpful.

Although they could always release the source and let us take care of the updates for them... ;) But I'm sure they're even more against that then releasing an MSI.

Re:Packaging...

[colinrichardday]

They could start by releasing a *&^#@ MSI file for Windows and a deb/tar/rpm for Linux.

They have packages. Check www.adobe.com and look under Linux.

Re:Packaging...

[darkpixel2k]

They could start by releasing a *&^#@ MSI file for Windows and a deb/tar/rpm for Linux.

They have packages. Check www.adobe.com and look under Linux.

Are they finally up to date? I remember a year or so back that they were slightly outdated.

But the one that really hurts is no Windows MSI. I can easily install a deb to 500 linux machines using cssh. I can't easily install some stupid EXE with lots of clicky installer bullshit to 500 machines without going insane. When managing a large Windows network, I've found you *must* have MSIs to mass-install software. That's the whole reason we aren't using Firefox anywhere. Can't easily deploy it.

Re:Packaging...

[mlts]

FrontMotion (http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox/) keeps (fairly) updated copies of Firefox on their website ready to push in .MSI format. They are also signed.

This may not be something usable in a lot of places (Frontmotion isn't a company that everyone knows, so people would be leery of trusting their signatures), but it can be useful in some cases.

No, it doesn't.

[gbutler69]

It doesn't work fine in the browser I normally use.

the funny thing is

[vuffi_raa]

both of the security holes in flash and acrobat aren't holes in the adobe products themselves, they are both fairly secure, the problem is that both allow you to run code through them, with flash you can socket just about anything into it and the big hole in acrobat is running javascript through it- really adobe ought to do what macromedia did when they had flash and only allow code to run that modifies local files through a standalone projector file and not through a .swf file