Adobe’s monthly update for September is a little later than its usual Patch Tuesday release but it's not aware of any of them being attacked in the wild yet.
Adobe has released updates for 23 bugs affecting Flash Player and AIR on all platforms and browsers. The critical bugs affect the plugin for Windows and Mac, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Edge, and Linux.
The update brings the latest version of Flash Player for Mac, Windows, Chrome, IE and Edge on Windows 10, and IE 10 and 11 on Windows 8.0 and 8.1 to 19.0.0.185. The latest version for Linux is 11.1.202.521.
“These updates address critical vulnerabilities that could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system,” Adobe noted in an advisory on Monday.
Unlike some of the recent Flash Player updates, Adobe said it was not aware of attacks in the wild on any of the vulnerabilities in this update. Still, Adobe urges users to install the updates as a priority for all editions except for Linux. It’s not uncommon for web attacks for Flash Player flaws to appear in exploit kits soon after Adobe releases fixes. In addition, 18 of the 23 bugs could lead to code execution.
The update comes a little later than usual. Since 2012 Adobe has timed the release of security fixes for Flash Player to fall on the second Tuesday of each month alongside Microsoft’s monthly fixes, however this month’s Patch Tuesday only saw fixes for Adobe Shockwave.
An Adobe spokeswoman told CSO Australia the later than usual due to additional testing.
“We aim to align our security patches with the Patch Tuesday schedule, but from time to time will release on a different date for various reasons. In this case, Flash Player features required some additional testing,” she said.
Google’s Project Zero team continues its record for finding bugs in Flash Player. It was credited with reporting 10 of this months flaws after being credited with 24 of 35 bugs Adobe in Flash Player last month. Others credited in this month’s update included independent researchers Ben Hayak, billow and Malte Batram, as well as researchers at Alibaba, Tencent, AddReality and Qihoo 360. The Keen Team also reported an issue through HP’s Zero Day Initiative.
The update also follows last month's moves by Google and Amazon to limit the role of Flash Player in online advertising.
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