All us anti-apple “why don’t you use Flash, Jobs?”, advocates are looking a little silly now. Android based smartphones are currently in a bit of trouble after a flaw was found in the Adobe Flash platform that is giving hackers the ability to seriously target the handsets.
Adobe has published an apology and warning on their website, stating that even the latest 10.2 version of their flash player is vulnerable. They of course said they’re working to fix the issue, but no word on when the next update will be released. Adobe also warned people to only use trusted sites as hackers are already exploiting the problem by using a Flash .swf file embedded in an Excel .xls file.
Apparently there are also flaws in the authplay.dll component shipping with Adobe Reader and Acrobat for Windows and Mac though no words on whether this has been exploited as of yet; that said, I’m sure it won’t be long.
While Apple users may go “aha, see?” with this incidence, this is simply a price Android and other users pay for an open platform; having the choice. Just as freedom of speech occasionally back fires on us, I’d rather have the chance of malware infection than simply not have the choice to use flash or not.
What do you guys reckon?
