Adobe Flash Vulnerability Affects Flash Player and Other Adobe Products

Original release date: July 23, 2009
Last revised: --
Source: US-CERT

Systems Affected

• Adobe Flash Player 10.0.22.87 and earlier 10.x versions
• Adobe Flash Player 9.0.159.0 and earlier 9.x versions
• Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1.2 and earlier 9.x versions

Overview

Adobe has released Security advisory APSA09-03, which describes a vulnerability affecting Adobe Flash. Other Adobe applications that include the Flash runtime, such as Adobe Reader 9, are also affected.

I. Description

Adobe Security Advisory APSA09-03 describes a vulnerability affecting the Adobe Flash player. Flash player version 10.0.22.87 and earlier 10.x versions as well as Flash player version 9.0.159.0 and earlier 9.x versions are affected.

An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by convincing a user to visit a website that hosts a specially crafted SWF file. The Adobe Flash browser plugin is available for multiple web browsers and operating systems, any of which could be affected. An attacker could also create a PDF document that has an embedded SWF file to exploit the vulnerability.

This vulnerability is being actively exploited.

II. Impact

This vulnerability allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code as the result of a user viewing a web page or opening a PDF document.

III. Solution

These vulnerabilities can be mitigated by disabling the Flash plugin or by using the NoScript extension for Mozilla Firefox or SeaMonkey to whitelist websites that can access the Flash plugin. For more information about securely configuring web browsers, please see the Securing Your Web Browser document. US-CERT Vulnerability Note VU#259425 has additional details, as well as information about mitigating the PDF document attack vector.

Thanks to Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center/DCISE for information used in this document.

IV. References

• Vulnerability Note VU#259425 - <http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/259425>
• Security advisory for Adobe Reader, Acrobat and Flash Player - <http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa09-03.html>
• Securing Your Web Browser - <http://www.us-cert.gov/reading_room/securing_browser/>
• NoScript - <https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/722>

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Revision History

July 23, 2009: Initial release