After a one month break, new security updates have just been issued for Adobe Flash software.  I have been warning you for years about flaws in Adobe Flash that have been exploited by hackers and identity thieves against individuals, companies and government agencies including the U.S. State Department and the White House.  Problems with Adobe Flash are nothing new.  In 2010 Steve Jobs vociferously complained about its security and it has routinely been cited as being extremely vulnerable.  Despite security patch after security patch, new problems keep coming up.

Beginning on October 11th Microsoft will begin blocking outdated versions of Adobe Flash from running in Internet Explorer on Windows 7.  If you use Windows 8.1, Windows 10 or Windows Server 2012R2, this will not affect you because these systems automatically install Adobe Flash security patches.

It appears that just as companies retire certain programs when it is just too difficult to patch them, this may well be the time for Adobe to retire Flash and if it doesn’t, you should consider retiring it yourself and replacing it with another plugin that performs the same function, but is safer.    Adobe Flash has already been proven to be so vulnerable to successful attacks by hackers that installing new security patches as quickly as they are issued is little more than putting a Band-aid on the Titanic if I can mix my metaphors.

TIPS

Here is the link to the latest Adobe Flash security update which I urge you to download as soon as possible if you wish to continue to use Adobe Flash: https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/current-activity/2016/09/13/Adobe-Releases-Security-Updates

Some alternative plugins you may wish to consider to replace Adobe Flash include  GNU Gnash, and Silverlight.  Silverlight can be downloaded free directly from the Microsoft at this link: https://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/ while GNU Gnash can be downloaded free at this link: http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/