2012 Security Threats

Hackers are sidestepping automated security technology and are using social engineering and data mining to orchestrate attacks against prominent individuals and their corporate networks.

This trend has been brought about through advances in network protection and tighter regulation both of which have conspired to make it more difficult for hackers to compromise systems and create widespread disruption.

Traditional techniques such as SQL injection, web app hijacking and unauthorised server access are now being bypassed in favour of more rewarding social engineering practices which yield the data necessary to carry out highly organised systematic attacks.

Five influential security trends to watch in 2012 are:  (more…)

Windows 8 Antivirus

In a move that is likely to anger the antivirus industry, Microsoft is adding security features from its Security Essentials program to Windows 8. This is good news for consumers, but bad news for the antivirus industry. Microsoft should have been doing this since the release of Windows 95. While many of us do simultaneous facepalms and giggle at a decade-late decision, others question the legality of doing so. A multi-billion dollar industry has grown, based on the absolute porous operating system that is Microsoft Windows.

That’s right. Microsoft this week began offering U.S. customers its free antivirus program via Windows’ built-in update service, a move one major security firm said may be anti-competitive. Microsoft is adding features from its Security Essentials program, which is currently available as a separate download for Windows users, to the Windows Defender package already built into Windows. This means that Windows 8 users will get out-of-the-box protection against malware, along with firewall and parental controls from within Windows without requiring users hunt down a separate download or buy new software. (more…)

Data Loss and Vacations

Backing up your computer these days? I hope so..

There’s little question Americans love their vacation time and their cocktails, but new research suggests they love their computers even more. Released by Carbonite, the study found that 50 percent of those surveyed would rather lose their vacation time for a year than lose all of the files on their computer, and while wedding rings may be an important symbol of marriage, the research also revealed that nearly 40 percent of those surveyed would rather lose it than everything on their computer.

In addition, the study shows that Americans would be willing to give up a lot if it meant they could recover data, including:

• Giving up beer and wine for a year — 34 percent.
• Giving up coffee for a year — 31 percent.
• Giving up their cellphone for a month — 23 percent.
• Giving up their free time to mow their neighbor’s lawn for a year — 18 percent.

It’s not just luxury items those surveyed are willing to part with. Nearly two-thirds said they would pay to get their lost data back if their computer crashed, with 21 percent willing to pay as much as $500 and 27 percent saying they would pay whatever it took.

Despite the significant value placed on electronic data, nearly 40 percent of those surveyed admit they have never backed up their computers, or haven’t done so in more than a year.

The research also found that despite more than half of those surveyed having lost all of their personal files in a computer crash, people still continue to place too much trust in their hard drives.

The survey shows that 82 percent of Americans keep electronic files, with the majority nowhere else but on their computer hard drive. In addition, the average person surveyed has more than $400 worth of digital music and movies on their computer.

David Friend, Carbonite CEO and chairman, said people have priceless photographs, critical personal financial information and hundreds of dollars of digital media stored on their computer, but still aren’t taking the necessary precautions to ensure it is safe. Carbonite provides data-backup services.

“It’s interesting to contrast the way people insure their treasured possessions, like their home and their car, with the ways in which they leave their often-irreplaceable digital assets unprotected,” Friend said in a statement. “Most have experienced at least one major data loss disaster, yet are still not taking simple steps to protect the contents of their computer.”

BING!…your infected

Search engines from Microsoft and Yahoo! Have once again been caught displaying ads that direct users to malicious content, some that infects them with malware that’s hard to detect and get rid of, researchers said. I see that they put as much thought into who is allowed to advertise as they do in making a stable operating system.

Queries such as “FireFox Download,” “Download Skype,” and “Download Adobe Player” typed into the sites returned links promising to deliver the software requested but instead attempted to hijack people’s computers, GFI Labs researcher Christopher Boyd said in a blog post published Friday. Clicking on the links takes users to pages that look like the software maker’s official site, except for the URL.

“As an example, the fake Firefox file installs a rootkit, runs IE silently in the background attempting clickfraud and also performs Google redirects,” Boyd wrote. Microsoft and Yahoo were in the process of removing the malicious ads, he said.

It’s not the first time widely used search engines have been caught displaying ads intended to harm their millions of users. Ad services used by Google and Yahoo have repeatedly been duped into serving content that punts malware and other threats.

Criminals often go to elaborate lengths to pose as legitimate marketers in an attempt to get links to their toxic wares in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

“Microsoft’s Security Team has identified the source of this malware attack and is blocking those sites from loading additional malware,” the company said in a statement. “We are continuously monitoring our sites to protect customers; and also working with law enforcement authorities to find and prosecute the people responsible for these types of attacks.”

A Bing Forum thread has Wil from Bing telling a webmaster that it can take between 3 and 6 weeks to have a malware label removed from the search results.

This is in comparison to Google which normally can remove a malware label within 24 hours.

I am not sure if this is a special case or if most Malware reviews take 3-6 weeks at Bing. Wil from Bing said:

Your issue is already being reviewed. Malware re-evaluation requests take 3-6 weeks to finalize our review and create a new reputation ranking of the page/site. A representative will get in touch with you for updates.

When you are presented with Malware via Bing, Bing disables the link but does allow the searcher to ultimately visit the page at their own risk. I’d assume 99.999% of those searchers run.

Bing has a detailed post on Malware on their blog with more information.

Malware and hacked sites are a huge issue in search. Google has been very good at handling it for the most part recently and is excellent at removing the malware or hacked label quickly after the site is fixed. Bing takes 3-6 weeks? Well, that seems excessive. Maybe I am reading it wrong?

This is why I tell people to NOT use Internet Explore. If you must continue using Windows unfortunately, then please by all means use ESET NOD32 in conjunction with HitManPro.

Windows Patch Tuesday – November 2011

It is that time again! Adobe, Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla all released updates on Tuesday to fix critical security flaws in their products. Adobe issued a patch that corrects four vulnerabilities in Shockwave Player, while Redmond pushed updates to address four Windows flaws. Apple slipped out an update that mends at least 17 security holes in its version of Java, and Mozilla issued yet another major Firefox release, Firefox 8. If there have been 17 security holes in Java just since the last release If that doesn’t convince a person to uninstall Java, I’m not sure what will.

The only “critical” patch from Microsoft this month is a dangerous Windows flaw that could be triggered remotely to install malicious software just by sending the target system specially crafted packets of data. Microsoft says this vulnerability may be difficult to reliably exploit, but it should be patched immediately. Information on the other three flaws fixed this week is here. The fixes are available via Windows Updates for most supported versions of the operating system, including XP, Vista and Windows 7.

Adobe’s Shockwave update also fixes critical flaws, but users should check to see if they have this program installed before trying to update it. To test whether you have Shockwave installed, visit this page; if you see an animation, it’s time to update. If you see a prompt to install Shockwave, there is no need to install it. Mozilla Firefox users without Shockwave Player installed may still see “Shockwave Flash” listed in the “Plugins” directory of the browser; this merely indicates that the user has Adobe’s Flash Player installed.

The vulnerabilities fixed by this update exist in versions ofShockwave 11.6.1.629 and earlier. The latest version, v. 11.6.3.633, is available here.  I’m sure it has its uses, but to me Shockwave is just another Adobe program that requires constant care and feeding. What’s more, like Adobe’s Flash Player, Shockwave demands two separate installation procedures for IE and non-IE browsers.

Hat tip to the SANS Internet Storm Center for the heads up on the Java fix from Apple. This update, available via Software Update or Apple Downloads, essentially brings Snow Leopard and Lion up to date with the Oracle patches released last month in Java 6 Update 29 (Apple maintains its own version of Java).

If you use Mozilla Firefox or Thunderbird, you may have noticed that Mozilla is pushing out another major upgrade that includes critical fixes to these programs; both have now been updated to version 8. If you’re still running Firefox version 3.6.x, Mozilla has updated that to3.6.24. Perhaps I’m becoming a curmudgeon, but I’m growing weary of the incessant update prompts from Firefox. It seems that almost every time I start it up it’s asking to restart the browser or to remove plugins that no longer work with the latest version. I’ve been gradually transitioning more of my work over to Google Chrome, which seems faster and updates the browser and any installed plugins silently (and frequently patches oft-targeted plugins like Flash Player even before Adobe officially releases the update).

I switched to Google Chrome when it first came out ago. I love it. It’s faster and makes updating easy and effortless. I still have Firefox, but Chrome is my default browser now on all my computers.

Are You Pwned?

2011 has been called the year of the data breach, with hacker groups publishing huge troves of stolen data online almost daily. Now a new site called pwnedlist.com lets users check to see if their email address or username and associated information may have been compromised.

Pwnedlist.com is the creation of Alen Puzic and Jasiel Spelman, two security researchers from DVLabs, a division of HP/TippingPoint. Enter a username or email address into the site’s search box, and it will check to see if the information was found in any of these recent public data dumps.

Puzic said the project stemmed from an effort to harvest mounds of data being leaked or deposited daily to sites like Pastebin and torrent trackers.

“I was trying to harvest as much data as I could, to see how many passwords I could possibly find, and it just happened to be that within two hours, I found about 30,000 usernames and passwords,” Puzic said. “That kind of got me thinking that I could do this every day, and if I could find over one million then maybe I could create a site that would help the everyday user find if they were compromised.”

Pwnedlist.com currently allows users to search through nearly five million emails and usernames that have been dumped online. The site also frequently receives large caches of account data that people directly submit to its database. Puzic said it is growing at a rate of about 40,000 new compromised accounts each week.

Puzic said information contained in these data donations often make it simple to learn which organization lost the information.

“Usually, somewhere in the dump files there’s a readme.txt file or there’s some type of header made by hacker who caused the breach, and there’s an advertisement about who did the hack and which company was compromised,” Puzic said. “Other times it’s really obvious because all of the emails come from the same domain.”

Puzic said Pwnedlist.com doesn’t store the username, email address and password data itself; instead, it records a cryptographic hash of the information and then discards the plaintext data. As a result, a “hit” on any searched email or username only produces a binary “yes” or “no” answer about whether any hashes matching that data were found. It won’t return the associated password, nor does it offer any clues about from where the data was leaked.

Any site that raises awareness about the benefits of strong passwords is a good thing in my book. But deciding what action to take — if any — after finding a hit on your email address at pwnedlist.com.

Answering the question of, “What now,” pwnedlist.com offers the following advice:

“Don’t panic! Just because your email was found in an account dump we collected does not mean it has been compromised. Your first reaction should be to immediately change any passwords that might be associated with this email account. It is probably a wise idea to go through all your accounts and create new passwords for each of them, just in case. Once one account has been compromised its best to assume all others have been too. Better safe than sorry.”

Length and complexity are two of the most important factors in determining a strong password. It’s also a good idea to periodically change passwords for sensitive accounts, provided you have a decent way to recover the password should you forget or lose it.

Puzic said while his site does not store username or email address submitted to the pwnedlist.com form, for security reasons he does keep a record of Internet addresses of those who use the site: It seems some users have been trying to poison the database or include malware and exploits in data dumps submitted to the site.

“We have attempts about every other week [to plant malware or hack the site], but nobody’s done it yet,” he said. “We’ve had lots of different attempts. Someone tries just about every week.”

The two researchers plan to begin publishing regular updates to their Twitter account (@pwnedlist) when new data dumps are discovered. Longer term, Puzic said he has multiple goals for the site, including a longitudinal study on password security.

“I would love it if this could raise awareness about cybersecurity,” he said. “Also, it could serve as a good measuring stick for the amount of breaches that happen every day. For example, if you see that all of a sudden I have eight million more entries, something big may have happened.”

Apple Mac Trojans

A newly identified Mac OS X Trojan bundles a component that leverages the processing power of video cards (GPUs) to generate Bitcoins, a popular type of virtual currency.

The new Trojan known as OSX/Miner-D, nicknamed “DevilRobber” by antivirus vendors, is being distributed together with several software applications via BitTorrent sites.

“This malware is complex, and performs many operations,” security researchers from Mac antivirus vendor Intego warned. “It is a combination of several types of malware: It is a Trojan horse, since it is hidden inside other applications; it is a backdoor, as it opens ports and can accept commands from command and control servers; it is a stealer, as it steals data and Bitcoin virtual money; and it is a spyware, as it sends personal data to remote servers,” they explained. The software is being distributed through torrent sites. It installs a Java-based application called “DiabloMiner” that uses your Mac’s graphics processing unit (GPU) to generate Bitcoins.

The Bitcoin mining program that DevilRobber installs on infected computers is called DiabloMiner and is a legitimate Java-based application used in the virtual currency’s production. As this application is Java based, it will run on Windows, Solaris and Linux computers.

The first sign of infection is if your Mac suddenly becomes sluggish, Graham Cluley of Sophos wrote in a blog post.

“It’s becoming clearer every week that Mac users need to take malware protection more seriously by running anti-virus software,” he wrote.

The DevilRobber trojan steals processing power, which can lead to slow computer performance, as well as actual Bitcoins, which are kept in virtual wallets on the victim’s machine.

“OSX/Miner-D [DevilRobber] also spies on you by taking screen captures and stealing your usernames and passwords,” warned Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at antivirus vendor Sophos.

“In addition, it runs a script that copies information to a file called dump.txt regarding truecrypt data, Vidalia (TOR plugin for Firefox), your Safari browsing history and .bash_history,” he added.

So far, the Trojan has been detected in a BitTorrent download for GraphicConverter version 7.4, an image editing application for Mac OS X. However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t similarly Trojanized torrents out there.

“Clearly, Mac users — like their Windows cousins — should practice safe computing and only download software from official websites and legitimate download services,” Cluley said. He also stressed that Mac users should install an antivirus program, which is not hard to do and costs nothing.

There are several providers of free antivirus solutions for Mac and all of their solutions are more capable than Mac OS X’s default anti-malware defense mechanism, which some Trojans already bypass or even disable.

The latest patch from Microsoft Security Essentials and other Mac AV providers will detect this DevilRobber. I suggest you go one step further and use ESET NOD32.

Bitcoin is a form of virtual cash that can be exchanged by users without the need for an intermediary bank or payment service. Bitcoins are actually cryptographic hashes that get generated piece by piece using specialized programs like DiabloMiner, according to a public algorithm.

Bitcoin is a decentralized, highly controversial virtual currency that was formed by programmers in 2009. The currency is generated by programming computers to calculate highly complex math problems; the more computing power you have, the faster you can create Bitcoins. This is why Bitcoin rigs often look like massive sculptures of connected servers.

Ideally, Bitcoin resolves issues inherent in traditional currencies, like double-spending, inflation, corruption, and inept monetary authorities. But in reality, the effort is being undermined by security issues like exchange breaches, account theft, and pure FUD.

In the past we’ve also heard of Twitter-based Bitcoin bots and months ago, Symantec predicted the spawn of botnets used to mine Bitcoins.

One Bitcoin is currently valued at around US$3.20, and it is a good source of profit for both Bitcoin miners, who legitimately use their computer resources to generate them, and cybercriminals who steal them.

Windows Patch Tuesday – October 2011

Windows, insecure by design. How else can you explain that all supported versions of Internet Exploiter have the same vulnerability to injection of malware?

Microsoft and Apple today released security updates to fix a slew of critical security problems in their software. Microsoft’s patch batch fixes at least 23 vulnerabilities in Windows and other Microsoft products. Apple’s update addresses more than 75 security flaws in the Windows versions of iTunes.

Nine of the 23 flaws Microsoft fixed with patches today are rated “critical,” meaning attackers could exploit them to break into vulnerable systems with little or no help from users. Eight of the nine critical bugs are in Internet Explorer. The remaining critical flaw is corrected in an update for the .NET Framework. Three of the vulnerabilities fixed with these updates were disclosed publicly prior to today, including a flaw in Windows Media Center that Microsoft believes crooks are likely to soon figure out how to reliably exploit.

The iTunes update brings the music player software to version 10.5, and is available for Microsoft systems running Windows 7, Vista, XP SP2 and later. Two new features of iTunes deserve mentioning: Apple says iPhone and iPad users who upgrade to iOS 5 when it is released later this week will be able to sync with iTunes wirelessly. More importantly from an update perspective, Apple has at long last untethered iTunes from QuickTime.

Users can download the update by opening iTunes; if you’re not directed to download iTunes 10.5 when you start the program, click “Help,” and then “Check for Updates.” Some OS X users may be wondering how many of these flaws exist in the Mac version of iTunes. According to the SANS Internet Storm Center, Mac users can expect some of these problems to be fixed inSecurity Update 2011-006 and in OS X Lion v. 10.7.2. For the time being, however, neither of those updates appear to have been released.

The latest Windows patches are available through Windows Update or via Automatic Update.

October’s Patch Tuesday release resolved issues in Internet Explorer versions 6 through 9, all versions of Microsoft Windows from XP through 7, .NET and Silverlight, Microsoft Forefront Unified Access Gateway and Host Integration Server, Microsoft said Oct. 11. Two of the patches are rated “critical,” and six are rated “important,” Microsoft said.

Microsoft recommended that organizations apply the Internet Explorer and .NET/Silverlight patches first as attackers are likely to come out with a reliable exploit within 30 days. Malware developers often reverse-engineer the patches after they are released to develop exploits that target unpatched systems.

Kaspersky Lab senior security researcher Kurt Baumgertner said that reliable exploitation will lead to remote code execution across a wide variety of Windows versions because Internet Explorer and Silverlight are heavily used software clients.

“It would be surprising to not see related exploits added to packs and widely used in attack attempts over the coming months,” Baumgartner wrote on the Securelist blog.

The critical update for Internet Explorer fixed at least eight known security flaws in all versions of Microsoft’s Web browser, including the latest Internet Explorer 9. The bugs were in the way IE handled objects in memory and the way memory was allocated and accessed.

If exploited, the bugs in Internet Explorer would expose the user to drive-by download attacks just by merely browsing to a booby-trapped site, according to Microsoft. The attacker can gain the same user rights as the user, but users who have accounts with fewer user rights are likely to be less impacted than those who have administrative rights.

“Patching browsers will be top priority because the vulnerabilities fixed with each security bulletin release in browsers are top exploit targets for attackers,” Jason Miller, manager of research and development at VMware, told eWEEK.

The second critical update fixed a remote code execution flaw in .NET Framework and Silverlight. Users could be compromised just by viewing a malicious page specifically running XAML Browser Applications or Silverlight applications, Microsoft said. The vulnerability would also allow remote code execution on a server running IIS if that system allowed processing ASP.NET pages and specially crafted ASP.NET pages are uploaded to the server and executed. The .NET issue also affects Mac OS clients, according to Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications at McAfee Labs.

The .NET framework class inheritance vulnerability is “complex to exploit” but can be exploited in a “number of ways,” including traditional downloads, drive-by-downloads and by hosting a malicious .NET application, said Joshua Talbot, security intelligence manager at Symantec Security Response.

Microsoft fixed five privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Forefront Unified Access Gateway. The cross-site scripting vulnerability in Microsoft Forefront, if exploited, will allow attackers to steal log-in credentials used for VPN access and gain access to sensitive data. The patch for Microsoft Forefront will likely affect the “smallest number” of organizations because Microsoft generally doesn’t have a big presence in corporate security infrastructure, Marcus Carey, a security researcher at Rapid7, told eWEEK.

Microsoft has two bulletins to fix the DLL preload vulnerabilities in Windows Media Center and Microsoft Active Accessibility. Microsoft has released a patch 17 times to close this issue in various programs since it was first identified Aug. 23, 2010, according to Miller.

“Overall this Patch Tuesday is fairly moderate. Three of the included vulnerabilities have been previously disclosed, and there is an available proof-of-concept code,” Marcus said.

October is often the last month in which administrators at financial and retail organizations apply patches before going into “lock-down” mode for the holiday shopping season, according to Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle. “Enterprise IT teams should get ready to pull out all the stops,” Storms said.

How Windows gets malware

When a Microsoft Windows machine gets infected by viruses/malware it does so mainly because users forget to update the Java, Adobe Reader/Acrobat and Adobe Flash. This is revealed by a survey conducted by CSIS Security Group A/S. This group has been collecting data for 3 months on actual infections of computers by drive-by attacks on browsers.  Drive-by attacks are when you go to an innocent website and get a virus anyway.  This is typically from ads or hacked links.

Basis of the study

CSIS has over a period of almost three months actively collected real time data from various so-called exploit kits. An exploit kit is a commercial hacker toolbox that is actively exploited by computer criminals who take advantage of vulnerabilities in popular software. Up to 85 % of all virus infections occur as a result of drive-by attacks automated via commercial exploit kits.

The purpose of this study is to reveal precisely how Microsoft Windows machines are infected with malware and which browsers, versions of Windows and third party software that are at risk.

CSIS monitored more than 50 different exploit kits on 44 unique servers / IP addresses. Figures come from the underlying statistical modules, thereby ensuring an as precise overview of the threat landscape as possible. The statistical material covers all in all more than half a million user exposures out of which as many as 31.3 % were infected with the virus/malware due to missing security updates.

Among the vulnerabilities we have observed abused by the monitored exploit kits, we find:

CVE-2010-1885 Microsoft Help & Support HCP
CVE-2010-1423 Java Deployment Toolkit insufficient argument validation
CVE-2010-0886 Java Unspecified vulnerability in the Java Deployment Toolkit component in Oracle Java SE
CVE-2010-0842 Java JRE MixerSequencer Invalid Array Index Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
CVE-2010-0840 Java trusted Methods Chaining Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
CVE-2009-1671 Java buffer overflows in the Deployment Toolkit ActiveX control in deploytk.dll
CVE-2009-0927 Adobe Reader Collab GetIcon
CVE-2008-2992 Adobe Reader util.printf
CVE-2008-0655 Adobe Reader CollectEmailInfo
CVE-2006-0003 IE MDAC
CVE-2006-4704 Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 WMI Object Broker Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
CVE-2004-0549 ShowModalDialog method and modifying the location to execute code

The report above describes those operating systems, browsers, and applications that are vulnerable in the real world scenarios they have observed.  Here it is slimmed down:

Internet Explorer is the worst offending browser. Mozilla is second.
Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows Vista are the worst offending operating systems.
Java, Adobe Reader, and Adobe Flash are the worst offending applications.

Salient point is that, fully updated and patched installs let 70% of the infections through. Mainly because the technology is reactive. Even more salient is that only 13% of the successful infections relied on software that was Windows only (10% were IE exploits, 3% were Windows Help exploits) All you folks encourgaging your friends and families to buy Macs for the specific reason of their security are in for a world of hurt in a few years when Mac hits ~30+% market share. Kits are already starting to appear.

Conclusion: 99.8 % of all virus/malware infections caused by commercial exploit kits are a direct result of the lack of updating five specific software packages:

Java JRE 37%
Adobe Reader/Acrobat 32%
Adobe Flash 16%
MS Internet Explorer 10%
Windows HCP (Help) 3%
Apple Quicktime 2%

For the sake of security, I would not run Java, Adobe anything or Internet Exploiter.

We don’t want you getting viruses because it’s difficult to remove and more importantly, expensive and time consuming.

1. Uninstall java. Most end users never have a need for it and don’t update it.

2. Use Chrome to read PDFs or use Foxit. No need for Adobe, but to be fair Adobe’s new sandbox model in version X is resistant to viral infections and exploits.

3. Update flash as often as it says or switch to Chrome.

4. Use ESET NOD32 & HitmanPro for protection

Adobe Pushes Update

How can anyone stay on top of all the attack vectors on a Windows computer? Every machine I touch these days, never gets consistently updated, especially if it is a personal computer. Today I find that Adobe pushes an unscheduled security update.

“As expected, Adobe today released a security update for its Flash Player. The out of cycle update addresses critical security issues in flash player as well as an important universal cross-site scripting issue. Adobe reported that one of the vulnerabilities (CVE-2011-2444) is being exploited in the wild in active targeted attacks designed to trick the user into clicking on a malicious link delivered in an email message. To illustrate the importance of keeping systems up to date, including Adobe Flash products, the fact that the RSA cyber attack was executed using a spear phishing attack with an embedded flash file should serve as a friendly reminder. RSA was breached after an employee opened a spreadsheet that contained a zero-day exploit that installed a backdoor through an Adobe Flash vulnerability.“

Also, this just in. “Software maker Adobe Systems has launched Flash Player 11 and Adobe AIR 3 even as the industry is shifting to HTML 5 on the Web that lessens the reliance of developers on Flash.” Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 are scheduled for release in early October. Adobe didn’t give the date, but you should expect release at Adobe’s annual Max conference, between 1 and 5 October. Both support full hardware acceleration for 2D and 3D graphics, which Adobe claims provides rendering performance 1,000 times faster than Flash Player 10 and AIR 2.

Do you know what Flash version you have installed? No? Then use Adobe’s version test page. You can also check here.

Once you have the current version, you may also wish to adjust your configuration. Flash’s settings are rather curious as the controls themselves aren’t located on the computer but are instead accessed through a Flash object hosted by Adobe.

Adobe: “The Settings Manager is a special control panel that runs on your local computer but is displayed within and accessed from the Adobe website. Adobe does not have access to the settings that you see in the Settings Manager or to personal information on your computer.”

Right-clicking a Flash object and selecting “Global Settings” opens a page to Adobe’s Flash Player Settings Manager.

Just as flaws in the ubiquitous Adobe Flash were exploited to infiltrate RSA Security and compromise the encryption keys used in RSA’s SecurID two-factor authentication tokens, Flash may also have been the Achilles heel of Diginotar.

Adobe Flash is nearly universal. With Adobe Flash Player software and browser plug-ins available for virtually every operating system and browser, this zero-day flaw could potentially impact 90 to 95 percent of the PCs in the world.

Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle, connects the dots. “Adobe said that today’s bug ‘could be used to act on the user’s behalf with webmail providers.’ I think we can interpret this to mean that a successful attack using this zero-day bug could allow the attacker to access the user’s Gmail account.”

I implore you to patch Flash as soon as possible.