Adobe on patch parade to march out 83 bugs

Adobe has patched 83 vulnerabilities in its Reader, Acrobat, and Flash offerings including remote code execution holes. The former apps soaked up 71 patches centred on use-after-free, memory corruption, and buffer overflow vulnerabilities that lead to code execution. A dozen remote code execution flaws are plugged in Flash …

[Ole Juul]

rolleyes

too bad these guys just don't give up

[Anonymous Coward]

It's almost as if *someone* built (and continues to build) the universal Flash app to be as exploitable as possible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Portable

Flash, like Java, was designed to be universally portable - "write once, run anywhere". Back in the 1990s when those products were invented, portability was a most desirable feature and one that was hard to come by. Things looked very different in 2002 when Flash was first announced. "Most people are surprised, said Allaire, to learn that Flash Player is the most widely distributed piece of software in history, used by 414 million people. Over 98 percent of clients connected to the Internet have it installed, and it is downloaded 2.3 million times on an average day. Although Flash produces impressive graphics, it is only 350 kilobytes in size – lightweight enough to be downloaded in 30 seconds on a slow dial-up link". (from a Computerwire newsletter).

It was only gradually understood that universal portability plays the devil with security, which is even more important. But people could not appreciate the true extent of the potential security risks until they had the universal portability! This kind of thing is why engineering is so much fun.

[Captain DaFt]

Adobe code seems to consist of holes held together by patches.

Is their prize coder just a hyper active chimp with a keyboard and a box of sticking plasters??

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn...

Another month and more patches on top of patches on top of patches on top.... of totally crap software.

Now that I'm retired I can say with pride that I am not only Microsoft free but Adobe Flash and Acrobat Free.

What's not to like eh?

Don't answer that...

[macjules]

Eh?

But isn't Flash the actual bug? If they really want to fix Flash then surely they should just trash it and release an 'update' that simply removes this offensive POS from every computer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Affected Versions

It would be interesting to have a description of the affect the bugs have on each platform Windows, Macintosh, Linux and ChromeOS.

[Florida1920]

Just be glad Adobe doesn't build airplanes

That is all.

[King Jack]

Re: Just be glad Adobe doesn't build airplanes

Or submarines.

[Bob Dole (tm)]

Re: Just be glad Adobe doesn't build airplanes

Or cars.

[Adam Jarvis]

Microsofties might hate what Steve Jobs stood for...

But on Flash, Jobs made the correct call, at a time no else would.

So 'll say it again ofcom/BT (if you're reading), why the fcuk are we forced to install this shit to use BTWholesale Speedtester in the UK?

Ofcom. Pull your finger out (finger or whatever) and force BT to ditch this Flash based BTWholesale Speedtester. Old installations of Flash are a root cause of compromised PCs. End users shouldn't be forced to install Flash just so they can test their Broadband connection.

[Keef]

Want to download the latest version of Reader?

The be prepared to uncheck the two tick boxes for these unwanted things which are selected by default:

"Yes, install the free McAfee Security Scan Plus utility to check the status of my PC security. It will not modify existing antivirus program or PC settings.

Yes, install True Key™ by Intel Security to say goodbye to the hassle of passwords."

Most people won't realise that they are bundled and will inadvertently install both applications.

Adobe are worthless immoral bastards.