Adobe Systems is once again rolling out an emergency Flash update that patches a critical vulnerability under active attack to compromise the computers of unsuspecting users.
The latest Flash versions fix a remote code-execution bug that, as Ars reported last week, recently came under attack in the Angler exploit kit. Malware purveyors and other types of online crooks use such kits to seed compromised websites with attack code. Once people visit the sites with vulnerable computers, the booby-trapped pages surreptitiously exploit the vulnerabilities and install backdoors that can be used to log keystrokes, steal passwords, and install new pieces of malware at will.
An advisory Adobe published late last week warned that the bug resides in versions running on Windows, Macs, and Linux systems. So far, reports suggest that in-the-wild exploits are limited only to Windows systems. The vulnerability stems from a so-called use-after-free bug that allows attackers to corrupt the memory of affected computers. Trend Micro has additional technical details here.
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