Every second Tuesday of the month, many software vendors release various security updates and patches for their software. Microsoft and Adobe have all released security updates on Tuesday May 12 2015.
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft released 13 updates for the Windows operating system and Microsoft Office – many of which are rated important or critical. An excellent breakdown of all of the updates can be found at Ghacks.net
Adobe Flash
According to the Adobe security bulletin dated May 12 2015:
“Adobe has released security updates for Adobe Flash Player for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. These updates address vulnerabilities that could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system”
So update asap! Many conferencing solutions (like Adobe Connect) and Flash games use the Flash plugin.
However, if you only use Adobe Flash for watching YouTube videos, YouTube now defaults to HTML5 instead of Adobe Flash for playing videos in Google Chrome, IE 11, Apple Safari 8 and in beta versions of Firefox. So you can uninstall Adobe Flash if you are using these browsers (and not worry about keeping it up to date)
The latest update bumps the latest version of Flash Player for Windows and Mac OS X to version 17.0.0.188.
To determine what version of the Adobe Flash player you have on your Windows, Macintosh or Linux system, visit
http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/
To download an offline version of Adobe Flash Player for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux without any adware or bundled third-party offers, visit
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html
Opera and Chromium browser users, you’ll have to download the flash player installer from http://www.adobe.com/go/getflash.
Windows users should take note that
- the Flash Player in Microsoft Internet Explorer v9 and earlier versions of Internet Explorer,
- the Flash player in web browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Safari
- the Flash player in web browsers in Chromium and Opera
are separate installs. You should install and update versions of Adobe Flash for all three browser variations if you have all three installed.
For Internet Explorer v10 and Internet Explorer v11 (for users for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows 8), these browsers have Adobe Flash Player built-in and users should update their Internet Explorer browser versions.
Google Chrome browser users has Adobe Flash Player built-in and users should update the Google Chrome browser to the latest version. See https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95414 on how to do so.
Adobe Acrobat Reader
According to Adobe’s Security Bulletin dated May 12 2015
“Adobe has released security updates for Adobe Reader and Acrobat for Windows and Macintosh. These updates address vulnerabilities that could potentially allow an attacker to take over the affected system. Adobe recommends users update their product installations to the latest versions:
- Users of Adobe Reader XI (11.0.10) and earlier versions should update to version 11.0.11.
- Users of Adobe Reader X (10.1.13) and earlier versions should update to version 10.1.14.
- Users of Adobe Acrobat XI (11.0.10) and earlier versions should update to version 11.0.11.
- Users of Adobe Acrobat X (10.1.13) and earlier versions should update to version 10.1.14.
Read the Adobe’s bulletin at https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/reader/apsb15-10.html for instructions on how to update Adobe Reader and Acrobat.
