Microsoft Releases 4 Security Updates — Smallest Patch Tuesday Ever!

In Brief
Microsoft has issued its first Patch Tuesday for 2017, and it's one of the smallest ever monthly patch releases for the company, with only four security updates to address vulnerabilities in its Windows operating system as well as Adobe Flash Player.

Meanwhile, Adobe has also released patches for more than three dozen security vulnerabilities in its Flash Player and Acrobat/Reader

Google Chrome will Start Blocking Flash by Default

Google Chrome Stop Support to Adobe Flash Player

Chrome browser of Google will stop its support to Adobe’s Flash Player on almost all websites by the end of this year. Staff member, Anthony LaForge while posting to Google groups, had defined the plan of the company to stop automatically permitting Flash to run on websites. The plan intended to be implemented by the fourth quarter of 2016 would be seeing HTML5 replacing Flash as a much integrated media experience with quicker load times and less power consumption.

LaForge had mentioned that `if a site offers an HTML5 experience, this change would make that the main experience’. They will continue to ship Flash Player with Chrome and if a site really needs Flash, a prompt would be appearing at the top of the page when the user first tends to visit that site, providing the options of allowing it to run for that site. But the top ten website utilizing Flash would not have it disabled, according to Google. Presently the ten biggest website as per Google are Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, V.K.com, Yahoo, Live.com, Yandex.rv, OK.ru, Twitch.tv and Mail.ru, though these may be changing towards the end of the year.

Proposal Document Outlining Change

Whitelisted websites would be having their Flash use secured for a year though it will also be reviewed during a period of 12 months. Proposal document outlining how the change would take place had been online by LaForge:

• Flash would still be bundled with Chrome though would not be advertised by default 
• If HTML5 is provided by a website, Chrome would automatically default to it 
• If Flash Player is essential, a user would be prompted 
• When a user accepts the page will get refreshed and Flash will appear on any following visits to the domain

Latest Backlash against Adobe Flash

The move is said to be the latest in on-going backlash against Adobe Flash and the platform was used to create animations, web pages as well as games from the early 2000s. However, it has been slowly replaced with more open web standards. Adobe had said, in November, that it was time for developers to move away from using Flash. The company had mentioned in a blog post that they encourage content creators to build with new web standards and would continue to focus on offering the best tools and services for designers as well as developers in creating amazing content for the web.

In July 2015, Mozilla had blocked all the versions of Flash in its Firefox browser. During the time Mozilla had said that Flash would stay blocked till Adobe releases a version which was not being actively exploited by publicly known susceptibilities and the block had been lifted few days thereafter. The death of Flash had been slow and painful with Google now planning to deal with another blow.

Google has plans to begin blocking most of Flash content with Chrome and the changeover is targeted to the end of the year. Under its existing vision, almost every website would be having Flash content blocked by default and visitors will still be capable of enabling Flash content on a site-by-site basis though would have to specially opt to do so. Flash has been a threat on battery life and is constantly found to have severe security errors and hence its ultimate disappearance would be accepted.

Adobe Issues Emergency Patch For Flash Bug

Adobe Issued Emergency Patch for Flash Media Player

Emergency patch for Flash media player had been issued by Adobe to close the loopholes in the most popularly used software. Adobe had mentioned in its security advisory, that they are aware of a report that an exploit for CVE-2016-1010 is being used in limited targeted attacks and the notice advised Flash users to install the update at the earliest. The patch in total closes 23 separate security bugs in Flash player.

Those invading the security holes would be in a position of overtaking a computer and steal valuable data or spy on the owner of the system. For updates, users need to apply the patch quickly since several of the problem related seems to be critical and of the highest level. The holes are found in Flash and in versions of the other Adobe programs utilised on several platforms and devices.

Those devices at risk comprise of Windows machines, Macs and Linus computers together with phone running Android and iOS. Several different security researches inclusive of experts at Alibaba, Kaspersky Labs, Google and Microsoft had alerted Adobe to the issue with its Flash player. Most of the security firms have suggested that users could uninstall the flash player in order to refrain from being victim to malicious attachments or booby-trapped webpages.

Recommended to Uninstall Flash/Java/Silverlight

The patch brings about the latest version of Flash to 21.0.0.182 for Windows and Mac and 11.2.202.577 for Linux. Readers are recommended to uninstall Flash, Java and Silverlight browser extensions to check if they are essential. For several individuals, it is not essential and the reduced attack surface had lowered the chances of being visited by remote code-execution attacks.

Those who tend to depend on Flash in order to access the intranet of a company or any other site should consider utilising a dedicated browser for the same. In an effort at preventing attackers, several of the web firms have now stopped using Flash. Recently most of the other companies had issued security patches and the update of Firefox closed 40 single susceptibilities, which were over half of those considered as critical.

Security Bulletin Released By Adobe

Besides, Google has also issued for Chrome an update which among others had closed three security holes considered as `high’ severity and paid bug bounties amounting to $13,000 to the two researchers who had exposed the loopholes. Microsoft had recently issued its steady monthly security update which had attempted 13 issues in various programs comprising of the Internet Explorer as well as Edge browsers.

A security bulletin APSB16-08 had been released by Adobe acknowledging Kaspersky Lab for reporting CVE-1015-1010. The exposure could probably enable an attacker to take control of the affected system. The researchers of Kaspersky Lab researchers observed the usage of this weakness in a limited number of target attacks.

Adobe had mentioned in a December statement that though standards such as HTML5 would be the web platform for the future for all devices, Flash tends to continue to be utilised in main categories like Web gaming as well as premium video wherein fresh standards would have to be fully mature.

Adobe Chief- Mobile a Huge Positive for Us

Chief executive of Adobe System informed CNBC that the shift from personal computers to smartphones and tablets has been a big positive for the company. Though the company tends to attract an excess of photographers, illustrators, videographers and animators, Adobe has been well known for its image editing software, Photoshop as well as for introducing the portable document form – PDF that has been an internationally accepted medium of sharing electronic documents. Photoshop together with the other provisions from the California-based company is also available on Apple’s iOS as well as Google’s Android systems.

In an interview with `Squawk Box’ of CNBC, the CEO of Adobe, Shantanu Narayen had commented that the whole mobility phenomenon is a tailwind for their business. Being in the front of the pack in mobile setting together with millions of applications available as well as new one created daily, could be a tall order. The image editing offerings of Adobe, like Photoshop and Lightroom tends to compete with hundreds of other identical applications on iOS and Android operating system, comprising of Instagram, VSCO and Camera360. News site CNET and RBC Capital Markets had carried out a non-scientific survey and had observed that Adobe’s PC-based users were not always quick in adopting its mobile apps.

Adobe’s Creative Cloud – Collection of Multimedia Software

The data release last month indicated that among the respondents who had subscribed to Adobe’s Creative Cloud, 43% do not tend to utilise any of the mobile apps of Adobe. CNET had mentioned in a report that only around one in four seem to use the Photoshop Fix app to touch images and one in five seems to use the Photoshop Mix app for combining photos. Adobe’s Creative Cloud is said to a collection of multimedia software which is available for download through the internet on the basis of subscription. However, Narayen stated that the survey findings were more nuanced. He commented that he was of the belief that there is the half empty, half full scenario there. The half full scenario is that the number of people who have now downloaded the application and are using it as part of the workflow over the last year and a half, has absolutely exploded.

Photoshop Fix/Photoshop Mix – De-Facto Standard

He further added that for anyone who would prefer to do a serious content creation there is still the only game in town. Lightroom Mobile products which the survey spoke about together with Photoshop Fix and Photoshop Mix were rapidly becoming the de-facto standard for high-end image editing. Narayen had estimated around 60 million downloads for Adobe’s mobile apps in the iOS and Android ecosystems.

He had stated that another area of growth for Adobe was in its marketing cloud business which is a sequence of internet-based software for the marketers. He mentioned that every individual business needs to have a digital experience which they could then provide to their customers, irrespective of being in hospitality or financial service. He added that the market cloud business enables to deliver those experiences.