Re: FW: US-CERT Technical Cyber Security Alert TA06-075A -- Adobe Macromedia Flash Products Multiple Vulnerabilities

Hi folks, "There are critical vulnerabilities in Macromedia Flash player and related software. Exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service on a vulnerable system." For more detailed info, please see the forwarded message from CERT, below. Although I don't believe that Fedora or Fedora Legacy provides any version of Macromedia's Flash Player to our end users (as it's proprietary), end users may still decide to download and install this free plugin ... so it is good to know about this. I believe Flash is able to be used both with Firefox and Mozilla. Perhaps KDE's Konqueror also can use Flash. Someone who knows for sure about Konqueror, can you respond on the list and let us know?

One workaround one can do to not be vulnerable is to disable Flash, at least until a secure version can be installed. I use Mozilla-1.7.12. What I do to disable flash (and I rarely have it enabled ;)) is: 1) Shut down your browser and (Mozilla-based) email program, if open. 2) Do a '$ find /usr/lib -iname 'libflash*.so'. 3) It may find the flash player (possibly named 'libflashplayer.so') under any of these directories: /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ /usr/lib/mozilla-(version)/plugins /usr/lib/firefox-(version)/plugins 4) Wherever it finds the plugin .so (shared-object) file, then (as root) either delete the file, or rename it to something your browser will not find to load. I rename it to 'no_libflashplayer.so.txt'. 5) At this point, the flash player should be disabled, so when you next start Mozilla and/or Firefox you should be safe from this vulnerability. I make no warrantee that the above suggestions for disabling the flash player will work for you. You take the above steps AT YOUR OWN RISK! If anyone has a better way to suggest disabling the Macromedia Flash player, will you please respond to this message with your suggestion(s)? Thanks. For those of you already aware of this, my apologies for the duplication. Regards, David Eisenstein ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: US-CERT Technical Alerts <technical-alerts(a)us-cert.gov&gt; To: technical-alerts(a)us-cert.gov Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 18:13:56 -0500 Subject: US-CERT Technical Cyber Security Alert TA06-075A -- Adobe Macromedia Flash Products Multiple Vulnerabilities -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 National Cyber Alert System Technical Cyber Security Alert TA06-075A Adobe Macromedia Flash Products Contain Vulnerabilities Original release date: March 16, 2006 Last revised: -- Source: US-CERT Systems Affected Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, or other operating systems with any of the following Adobe Macromedia products installed: * Flash Player 8.0.22.0 and earlier * Flash Professional 8 * Flash Basic * Flash MX 2004 * Flash Debug Player 7.0.14.0 and earlier * Flex 1.5 * Breeze Meeting Add-In 5.1 and earlier * Adobe Macromedia Shockwave Player 10.1.0.11 and earlier For more complete information, refer to Adobe Security Bulletin APSB06-03. Overview There are critical vulnerabilities in Macromedia Flash player and related software. Exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service on a vulnerable system. I. Description Adobe Security Bulletin APSB06-03 addresses vulnerabilities in Macromedia Flash Player and related software. Further information is available in the following US-CERT Vulnerability Note: VU#945060 - Adobe Macromedia Flash products contain multiple vulnerabilities Several vulnerabilities in Adobe Macromedia Flash products may allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system. (CVE-2006-0024) Several operating systems, including Microsoft Windows (see Microsoft Security Advisory 916208), have vulnerable versions of Flash installed by default. Systems with Flash-enabled web browsers are vulnerable. An attacker could host a specially crafted Flash file on a web site and convince a user to visit the site. II. Impact A remote, unauthenticated attacker could execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user. If the user is logged on with administrative privileges, the attacker could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker may also be able to cause a denial of service. III. Solution Apply Updates Adobe has provided the updates for these vulnerabilities in APBS06-03. Disable Flash Please see Microsoft Security Advisory 916208 for instructions on how to disable Flash on Microsoft Windows. For other operating systems and web browsers, please contact the appropriate vendor. Appendix A. References * Macromedia - APSB06-03: Flash Player Update to Address Security Vulnerabilities - <http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/security/security_zone/apsb06-03 .html> * US-CERT Vulnerability Note VU#945060 - <http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/945060> * CVE-2006-0024 - <http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2006-0024> * Microsoft Security Advisory (916208) - <http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/916208.mspx> ____________________________________________________________________ The most recent version of this document can be found at: <http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA06-075A.html> ____________________________________________________________________ Feedback can be directed to US-CERT Technical Staff. Please send email to <cert(a)cert.org&gt; with "TA06-075A Feedback VU#945060" in the subject. ____________________________________________________________________ For instructions on subscribing to or unsubscribing from this mailing list, visit <http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/signup.html>;. ____________________________________________________________________ Produced 2006 by US-CERT, a government organization. Terms of use: <http://www.us-cert.gov/legal.html> ____________________________________________________________________ Revision History Mar 16, 2006: Initial release