Sunday’s breach sent hundreds of gigabytes of Hacking Team’s internal data coursing into the public domain.
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Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE) has announced that it has found vulnerabilities in all of its versions of Flash Player on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems, VentureBeat reports.
With all of these security flaws and constant updates on Adobe Flash, some users are considering doing without it altogether.
The leaked source code online has exposed the security vulnerabilities in the Adobe Flash Player that has been undetected for years together.
Hacking Team, meanwhile, told ZDNet that the attack on its system was “sophisticated” and that it knows how it happened, but declined to elaborate.
Trend Micro security researchers state that the leaked data stolen from Hacking Team, a company known to sell surveillance tools and communication interception, have a number of unpatched and unreported Adobe flaws.
Rabe acknowledged that the company was recommending that clients suspend use of the snooping programs until Hacking Team determines whether specific law enforcement operations have been exposed.
“From a purely engineering perspective, this code was very well written”. Adobe has credited Google’s Project Zero and Morgan Marquis-Boire, director of security, First Look Media, for reporting the critical bug and working to protect Flash users.
Although many online commenters pointed out perceived fallacies between the company’s idea of good entities and bad ones, others noted that while the governments using the firm’s technology might not fit everyone’s definition of “upstanding”, the fallout from the breach does put malware and vulnerabilities into cybercriminals’ hands.
For the more technology-inclined, the Flash vulnerability is already cataloged under CVE-2015-5119. As Forbes pointed out, leaked emails show that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and DEA were keen on Hacking Team’s software, which can run $500,000 for a full cross-platform setup.
It is highly advisable to update the Adobe Flash player as soon as possible before going to untrusted websites with flash content. Doing so may increase the chances of compromising the computer.
Adobe is set to offer the patch by today and until that it is advisable to disable Flash while using your computer to avoid any malicious hacker attack.
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As if it was not embarrassing enough for Hacking Team to fall victim to a cyber attack, it appears that the company was withholding important security information.
