June 24th, 2009

Critical Adobe Shockwave flaw affects millions

Posted by Ryan Naraine @ 9:41 am

Categories: Adobe, Arbitrary Code Execution, Browsers, Data theft, Exploit code, Flash, Malware, Patch Watch, Pen testing, Phishing, Rootkits, Viruses and Worms, Vulnerability research

Tags: Adobe Systems Inc., Shockwave, Shockwave Player, Security, Ryan Naraine

Adobe’s Shockwave Player contains a critical vulnerability that could be exploited by remote hackers to take complete control of Windows computers, according to a warning from the software maker.

The flaw affects Adobe Shockwave Player 11.5.0.596 and earlier versions. Details from Adobe’s advisory:

This vulnerability could allow an attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability to take control of the affected system.  Adobe has provided a solution for the reported vulnerability (CVE-2009-1860).  This issue was previously resolved in Shockwave Player 11.0.0.465; the Shockwave Player 11.5.0.600 update resolves a backwards compatibility mode variation of the issue with Shockwave Player 10 content.  To resolve this issue, Shockwave Player users on Windows should uninstall Shockwave version 11.5.0.596 and earlier on their systems, restart, and install Shockwave version 11.5.0.600, available here: http://get.adobe.com/shockwave/.  This issue is remotely exploitable.

Adobe boasts that 450 million Internet-enabled desktops have installed Adobe Shockwave Player.