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Adobe Patches Security Holes in Flash
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Adobe has released a security update for Flash Player in order to address several critical vulnerabilities, including one that is being exploited in the wild.
The Flash Player 10.3.183.10 for Windows, Mac and Linux, and Flash Player 10.3.186.7 for Android, contain patches for six security flaws.
One of them is a cross-site scripting (XSS) weakness that can be exploited to execute rogue actions on behalf of web sites or webmail providers if victims click on maliciously-crafted links.
“There are reports that this issue is being exploited in the wild in active targeted attacks designed to trick the user into clicking on a malicious link delivered in an email message,” Adobe warns in its security advisory.
XSS vulnerabilities are the result of improper user input validation and allow attackers to execute rogue code in the context of the current web site. For example, they can be leveraged to extract session cookies or load rogue forms into legitimate pages, which makes for very credible phishing attacks.
Adobe credits Google for reporting this cross-site scripting vulnerability, which is identified as CVE-2011-2444. This means it might have been detected in attacks against Gmail users.
Two other patched vulnerabilities allow for arbitrary code execution and are located in the AVM stack. One of them can also lead to a denial of service condition. Two remote code execution logic errors and a Flash Player security control bypass have also been addressed.
Users should deploy the new update as soon as possible because browser plug-ins like Java, Adobe Reader or Flash Player are amongst the most attacked pieces of software one can have on a computer. However, unlike Adobe Reader X (10.0) which features sandboxing technology, Flash Player doesn’t have any anti-exploitation mechanism built-in.
Flash Player 11 Launched With 3D Gaming
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Adobe Systems announced Flash Player 11 and Adobe Air 3 software Wednesday to assist developers in building more sophisticated applications with dozens of new features across smartphones and tablets as well as desktop computers.
The releases are Adobe’s biggest in two years, and will be available free of charge in early October, said Anup Murarka, Adobe’s director of product marketing. The related tools, Flash Builder and Flex, will support new features in Flash Player 11 and Adobe Air 3 by the end of the year.
The releases will enable delivery of 2D and 3D games over the Internet to various devices, Murarka said. Developers of enterprise applications will also find the 3D capabilities popular for data-centric apps. Enterprises, for example, will be able to build application dashboards to “visualize complex data sets” with 3D images, he said.
Developers will also be able to use the tools to more deeply integrate business software like Excel and Outlook in devices and to access hardware programming interfaces for functions such as Near-Field Communication being used more widely in smartphones, Murarka said.
The new versions will also help developers build more secure applications with the ability to leverage cryptographically secure random number generation, he said.
TSMC May Beat Intel To Market With 3D Chip
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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is competing with Intel to become the first technology firm to offer three-dimensional chips that boost the density of transistors in a single semiconductor by up to 1000 times.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker, could make its first 3D chips commercially available before the end of 2011, according to a person close to the situation who wishes to remain anonymous.
The time frame for TSMC matches the end of 2011 schedule that Intel has set for the launch of its 3D Tri-Gate chips, which the company expects to be the world’s first commercial 3D chip and the most significant advance in chip technology since the development of the chip transistor in the 1950s.
With several layers of silicon stacked together, a 3D chip can achieve performance gains of about a third while consuming 50% less power. For this reason, 3D chips are particularly well suited to power new generations of mobile devices such as tablets and mobile phones, businesses where Intel has so far failed to establish a significant presence.
“This is definitely a new business opportunity for TSMC,” said Shang-Yi Chiang, senior vice president for R&D at TSMC, in an interview. “We are building a patent portfolio now.”
3D chips are expected to solve a number of problems for chipmakers who are aiming for performance increases in ever-smaller chips. As transistor density rises, the wires connecting them have become both thinner and closer together, resulting in increased resistance and overheating. These problems cause signal delays, limiting the clock speed of central processing units.
“3D chips look more attractive because of their greater density,” Chiang said. “However, it is more difficult to make them because of the testing issues. If you have five stacked dies and one of the dies is bad, you have to scrap the whole thing.”