Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome browsers blocked old versions of Adobe's animation software after realizing that it's prone to serious vulnerability.
Citing reports that hackers were using a security bug in old versions of Adobe's animation software to hijack computers, Google's Chrome browsers blocked the software for a while Tuesday, July 14.
Adobe's animation software is often used to play online videos.
The Web giant's move come a couple of days after Facebook's top security executive; Alex Stamos had publicly called for Adobe to discontinue Flash.
Flash has been long-used to animate websites as well as play online videos; however it became equally known for security flaws and slowing down websites. In fact, Steve Jobs even refused to allow Flash to be installed on iPhones and iPad, in part, citing security concerns, The Wall Street Journal noted.
Several other animation tools have become widely used by many sites and browsers.
Adobe released a patch Tuesday morning. According to the company, if Flash is updated, both Firefox and Chrome will allow it to run. Mozilla noted that it set Firefox to automatically update Flash.
"Because the majority of attacks we are seeing are exploiting software installations that are not up-to-date on the latest security updates, users should update their installations immediately as the best possible defense against potential future attacks," an Adobe spokesman said.
Why all the Flash hate?
The flaw was recently revealed when a cyberattack on government-sponsored group Hacking Team leaked a series of documents that showed the Italian group using at least three unpatched Flash exploits to reportedly hack into people's account and take over their computers.
Allegedly, this organization sold tools and services to governments, including oppressive regimes, according to reports on DailyMail.
Things got worse when the details of the flaws were made public as it left the software open to other hacking groups as well as cybercriminals that could potentially take advantage of them. Attackers could install malware on people's computers, steal their personal details, and even monitor their keystrokes to steal passwords and more.
Apparently these exploits have been live for at least four years.
Researchers have verified three previously unknown attacks, and the most recent, spotted by Trend Micro, has been rated as critical.
On July 8, Adobe released a patch to fix the original vulnerability. The company released another update to Flash Player on Tuesday, July 14, stating that, "We are proactively pushing the update out to users. We are also working with browser vendors to distribute the updated player.
"Flash Player is one of the most ubiquitous and widely distributed pieces of software in the world, and as such, is a target of malicious hackers.
"We are actively working to improve Flash Player security, and as we did in this case, will work to quickly address issues when they are discovered."
