Yet more Flash Player flaws

What happened?

Adobe released a mammoth security patch containing 35 fixes for its beleaguered Flash Player, as explained in the company’s Security Bulletin: www.snipca.com/17592. All but one of the vulnerabilities fixed by this patch can be exploited by hackers to remotely access computers, although there’s no evidence this has happened. It affects Flash on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

What should you do?

Adobe won’t like us for suggesting this, but you should consider living life without Flash. Frankly, we’ve lost patience with the plug-in, and we wouldn’t blame you for removing it (use Adobe’s own uninstaller at www.snipca.com/17594).

But this option comes with consequences. Many websites still use Flash, so removing it will prevent some online videos from playing. If you want to give Flash a reprieve, download the latest version from https://get.adobe. com/flashplayer, then double-check you have the latest version by going to www.snipca.com/17593 and clicking Check Now (see screenshot). Flash is automatically updated in Google’s browser Chrome, Microsoft Edge for Windows 10, and Internet Explorer 10 and 11 for Windows 8.1 – though we still recommend you check.

Windows and Mac users should make sure they have installed version 18.0.0.232 (or higher), while Linux users should update to version 11.2.202.508 (or higher). These are the latest fixed versions – at the time of writing, at least. Flash flaws are being exposed so frequently that it may have been updated again in the time between Computeractive going to press, and you reading this!

Finally, consider turning on ‘Click to Play’ in your browser, which asks for your approval before allowing Flash to play. Learn how to do this in Chrome, IE, Opera, Firefox and Safari on Graham Cluley’s excellent security blog: www. snipca.com/17595.