Pierluigi Paganini April 06, 2016

A new Flash Player zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2016-1019) has been actively exploited by threat actors in attacks against systems running Windows XP and 7.

Once again a zero-day vulnerability in the Adobe Flash Player 21.0.0.197 is threatening Internet users worldwide. The news was spread by Adobe that issued a security alert on Tuesday anticipating an imminent release for a security patch.

The vendor, which will release a security patch as early as April 7, has credited Kafeine of Proofpoint, Genwei Jiang of FireEye, and Clement Lecigne of Google for reporting the issue.

The bad news is that according to the company, the Flash Player zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2016-1019) has been actively exploited by threat actors. Adobe is aware of cyber attacks exploiting the CVE-2016-1019 have been launched against systems running Windows XP and Windows 7 with Flash 20.0.0.306 and earlier.

“A critical vulnerability (CVE-2016-1019) exists in Adobe Flash Player 21.0.0.197 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and Chrome OS. Successful exploitation could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.” states the advisory published by Adobe on the Flash Player zero-day vulnerability.

Adobe is aware of reports that CVE-2016-1019 is being actively exploited on systems running Windows 7 and Windows XP with Flash Player version 20.0.0.306 and earlier.”

The Flash Player zero-day vulnerability affects the Player 21.0.0.197 and earlier versions for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS. The advisory confirms that the Flash Player version 21.0.0.182 released in March introduced a mitigation that prevents attackers from triggering the flaw.

“A mitigation introduced in Flash Player 21.0.0.182 currently prevents exploitation of this vulnerability, protecting users running Flash Player 21.0.0.182 and later. Adobe is planning to provide a security update to address this vulnerability as early as April 7. For the latest information, users may monitor the Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team blog.”

The vendor also published some suggestions on mitigations, users have to run Flash installation 21.0.0.182 or later due to the mitigation recently introduced.

“To verify the version of Adobe Flash Player installed on your system, access the About Flash Player page, or right-click on content running in Flash Player and select “About Adobe (or Macromedia) Flash Player” from the menu. If you use multiple browsers, perform the check for each browser you have installed on your system.”

Unfortunately, similar events are becoming too frequent, this is the third time that Adobe released a Flash Player update this year. The first updated was released in February, meanwhile, a second update was released in March, when Adobe fixed a number of flaws including the CVE-2016-1010.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Flash Player zero-day vulnerability, CVE-2016-1019)