Security and Privacy

This is an advance notification of one out-of-band security bulletin that Microsoft is intending to release on January 21, 2010. The bulletin will be for Internet Explorer to address limited, targeted attacks against customers of Internet Explorer 6, as well as fixes for vulnerabilities rated Critical that are not currently under active attack.

The full version of the Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for this release can be found at  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms10-jan.mspx.

Adobe released new versions of Flash and AIR today to address vulnerabilities in both products. Applying these updates as soon as practicable is a good idea, as Flash vulnerabilities are popular exploit vehicles in the wild.

Click here to install Flash 10.0.42.34.

Click here to install AIR 1.5.3.

The expanded security advisory explains that critical vulnerabilities could provoke crashes or remote code execution. Adobe Flash Player 10.0.32.18 and earlier versions and Adobe AIR 1.5.2 and earlier versions on all platforms are vulnerable.

7 new vulnerabilities are described cursorily. A patch to an eighth and older vulnerability is also updated. Adobe issues thanks to 6 different researchers for the help they provided with the vulnerabilities.

The advisory also adds that Flash Player version 10.1, which Adobe expects to release in the first half of 2010, will be the last to support PowerPC-based G3 Macs. They are discontinuing support, including security updates, past that version because they are implementing performance enhancements not supported in those processors.

http://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox35.html#firefox3.5.4

Mozilla fixes 16 flaws with Firefox 3.5.4:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140008/Mozilla_fixes_16_flaws_with_Firefox_3.5.4

 Mozilla today patched 16 vulnerabilities in Firefox, 11 of them critical, as it updated the open-source browser to version 3.5.4. 

 The 11 critical Firefox 3.5 vulnerabilities were located in a variety ofn components, including Web worker calls, the GIF color map parser, the string-to-number converter, a trio of third-party media libraries, and both the JavaScript and browser engines.