Few companies have, perhaps, suffered more from the 400 GB document leak from the Hacking Team than the group behind the long-beleaguered Flash software.
Among revelations which include that the Italian spyware company has been supplying hacking software to repressive governments, there are also not one or two, but three zero-day exploits for Adobe’s proprietary platform, which has managed to stick around despite criticism from Apple, Facebook, and YouTube.
Now, what may be the nail in the coffin, Mozilla has announced it will become the first major browser to block block by default all versions of Flash in its Firefox browser.
BIG NEWS!! All versions of Flash are blocked by default in Firefox as of now. https://t.co/4SjVoqKPrR #tech #infosec pic.twitter.com/VRws3L0CBW
— Mark Schmidt 🌐 (@MarkSchmidty) July 14, 2015
Mark Schmidt, the head of support for Firefox at Mozilla, made the announcement over Twitter last night. He clarified, however, that those who want to risk it can still access the protocol.
To be clear, Flash is only blocked until Adobe releases a version which isn't being actively exploited by publicly known vulnerabilities.
— Mark Schmidt 🌐 (@MarkSchmidty) July 14, 2015
While it’s unclear how long Adobe will draw out the process of phasing out Flash, with the company set to release a patch this week. However, online services including Facebook and Apple have been vocal in their distrust of the platform. Earlier this year, YouTube switched from Flash to an HTML5-based system. Adobe itself stopped support for mobile development.
