Adobe patches two critical flaws

Security

Adobe has issued two patches for critical vulnerabilities affecting its Shockwave Player software and RoboHelp for Word authoring product.

Two bulletins were issued on Tuesday, one of them addressing nine security flaws most of them memory corruption vulnerabilities - in Shockwave version 11.6.3.633 and earlier versions on Windows and Mac OS.

"These vulnerabilities could allow an attacker, who successfully exploits these vulnerabilities, to run malicious code on the affected system," Adobe said in its advisory.

These vulnerabilities could allow an attacker, who successfully exploits these vulnerabilities, to run malicious code.

There was just one vulnerability - CVE-2012-0765 in RoboHelp, affecting Windows users only.

"A specially crafted URL could be used to create a cross-site scripting attack on Web-based output generated using RoboHelp for Word," Adobe warned in a separate advisory.

"Adobe recommends users update their product installation."

Microsoft yesterday issued its Patch Tuesday release for February, covering 21 vulnerabilities, including a critical update to Internet Explorer.

The patches came on the same day security company Secunia slammed the software industry for not doing enough to promote patching and ease the burden for IT managers.

Secunia's annual patch report found none of the top 20 software providers, including tech giants like Apple, Microsoft and Google, were able to cut the number of flaws in their products over the past five years.

"Vendors in general should improve their communication to customers and the patch distribution mechanism (for consumers that would imply auto updating)," said Thomas Kristensen, chief security officer at Secunia.

Tom Brewster

Tom Brewster is currently an associate editor at Forbes and an award-winning journalist who covers cyber security, surveillance, and privacy. Starting his career at ITPro as a staff writer and working up to a senior staff writer role, Tom has been covering the tech industry for more than ten years and is considered one of the leading journalists in his specialism.

He is a proud alum of the University of Sheffield where he secured an undergraduate degree in English Literature before undertaking a certification from General Assembly in web development.