Microsoft today pushed out a bevy of software updates to fix more than four dozen security holes in Windows and related software. Almost a quarter of the vulnerabilities addressed in this month’s patch batch earned Microsoft’s “critical” rating, meaning malware or miscreants can exploit the flaws to break into vulnerable systems without any help from users.
Adobe has released an emergency update to address a critical security hole in its Flash Player browser plugin that is being actively exploited to deploy malicious software. If you’ve got Flash installed — and if you’re using Google Chrome or a recent version of Microsoft Windows you do — it’s time once again to make sure your copy of Flash is either patched, hobbled or removed.
Adobe has shipped a new version of its Flash Player browser plugin to close at least 19 security holes in the program, including one that is already being exploited in active attacks.
For the third time in a week, researchers have discovered a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe’s Flash Player browser plugin. Like the previous two discoveries, this one came to light only after hackers dumped online huge troves of documents stolen from Hacking Team — an Italian security firm that sells software exploits to governments around the world.
Last week, hacktivists posted online 400 GB worth of internal emails, documents and other data stolen from Hacking Team, an Italian security firm that has earned the ire of privacy and civil liberties groups for selling spy software to governments worldwide. New analysis of the leaked Hacking Team emails suggests that in 2013 the company used techniques perfected by spammers to hijack Internet address space from a spammer-friendly Internet service provider in a bid to regain control over a spy network it apparently had set up for the Italian National Military Police.
