Zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player is being distributed in a couple of exploit kits.
Attackers are using the previously un-patched flaw in Flash Player to infect victims with Locky or Cerber ransomware.
Using exploit kits to move ransomware isn’t new, but does escalate the distribution of Locky, which is well known for large breaches focused in the health care industry.
The zero day vulnerability affects all versions of Flash Player on Windows 10 and earlier.
Adobe patched 59 vulnerabilities in five different products, including Flash Player, Acrobat/Reader, Photoshop, Adobe Campaign, and it’s Adobe Creative Cloud App as part of its regularly scheduled software today.
The company warned in a series of security bulletins posted shortly before noon Tuesday that the bulk of the bugs, 44, are critical and could lead to code execution. The 44 code execution bugs marks an uptick over the month prior, when Adobe only fixed six code execution bugs in Flash and even in February, when it patched 13 code execution bugs in the software.
The cyber-criminals could have had millions of potential targets at their disposal with the zero day, but for whatever reason have limited this attack to older versions of Flash Player, the reason being is not clear why they targeted the older versions.
Adobe announced that an exploit could crash a system and allow attackers to execute arbitrary code on a compromised machine. Adobe added March 10 that Flash 21.0.0.182 protects users against attack; and urged users to update immediately. Adobe said active attacks using CVE-2016-1019 are targeting Windows 7 and Windows XP systems running Flash 20.0.0.306 and earlier.
Zero Day attacks are on the increase. Get ready.
