As useful as Adobe’s Flash Player tends to be, this is sort of a mess.
Less than a month after a critical Flash vulnerability allowed an attacker to take control of a Mac, Adobe has issued an emergency update for yet another critical flaw, bringing the current version to 21.0.0.213. The latest one is already being exploited by ransomware that encrypts Windows PCs, but while there’s no known exploit for OS X as yet, Adobe says that the same vulnerability exists on all platforms, and users should update immediately.
Adobe has released the updates for its Flash Player client on the Windows, Macintosh, Linux and ChromeOS operating systems. The patch itself addresses critical vulnerabilities that could allow an outside user to take control of an affected system.
Users can download the new version of Adobe Flash Player from the Adobe web site or, if already installed, go to OS X’s Flash Player preference pane and choose to update from there.
As always, be aware of malware-infected variants of Flash available online and only download and install variants from Adobe’s web site.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Update: According to the mighty Peter Cohen, this update also heads off a ransomeware exploit that can be used involving Adobe Flash. While the ransomeware is thought to be limited to Windows users, the fix is being applied to all supported platforms, making the update that much more essential.
Via 9to5Mac, Adobe and Peter Cohen