Adobe is a vendor that often plays catch-up with security exploits; issuing emergency patches issued to fix zero-day vulnerabilities. But Adobe, like Microsoft, also has a regular Patch Tuesday update cycle. This regularly scheduled update is a way to give users and enterprises a predictable and stable timetable for Adobe updates.

For August’s Patch Tuesday, Adobe has issued update advisories covering to fix a slew of critical security flaws in its products, including Flash, Shockwave Player and Adobe AIR.

The Flash update corrects at least 13 critical vulnerabilities present in versions 10.3.181.36 and earlier for Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris machines (the bugs exist in Flashversions 10.3.185.25 and earlier for Android devices). Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris users should upgrade to version 10.3.183.5, and Android users should update to v. 10.3.186.2. According to Adobe, they are not aware of any exploits “in the wild” for the issues addressed in the update. Digging into the vulnerabilities, the vast majority are for memory and five buffer overflows, four memory corruption and three integer overflow issues. There is also a single cross-site information disclosure issue that is fixed that could have potentially led to arbitrary code execution.

To find out which version of Flash you have, visit this page. Windows users who browse the Web with anything other than Internet Explorer will need to apply the Flash update twice, once using IE and again with the other browser (Google Chromeusers should already have the latest version of Flash). To avoid using Adobe’s annoying Download Manager, IE users can grab the latest update directly from this link; the direct link for non-IE browsers is here.

Windows users can furthermore use the Flash Player Settings Manager that is part of the Windows Control Panel to check for updates. Here it is furthermore possible to check the Flash Player version that is installed on the system. The path is Control Panel > Flash Player (32-bit) > Advanced. Users with a 64-bit version of Flash Player installed need to change the 32-bit to 64-bit in the path.

The same flaws exist in Adobe AIR for Windows, Mac and Android. Using an application that requires Adobe AIR (Tweetdeck or Pandora, for example) should prompt you to update to the latest version, AIR 2.7.1. If you don’t see a prompt to update the program, the latest version of AIR is available here.

Adobe also shipped an update to its Shockwave Player that fixes at least seven critical vulnerabilities in the media player program. Adobe is urging users of Adobe Shockwave Player 11.6.0.626 and earlier  update to Adobe Shockwave Player 11.6.1.629.

I should note that you may not have or want Shockwave installed. I haven’t had it on my Firefox installation for some time now and don’t seem to have missed it. 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, it demands two separate installation procedures for IE and non-IE browsers.

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.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 13th, 2011 at 12:52 by dsmith and is filed under Adobe, Adobe Air, Adobe Flash, Adobe Shockwave, Android, Browser, Chrome, Exploit, Firefox, Flaw, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Linux, MacOS, Malware, Mozilla, Patch, Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.