Apparently, Steve Jobs was right, once claiming that the multimedia platform Adobe Flash is a real evil. He deliberately refused to support this technology in iOS devices and as it turned out now, Apple's decision was 100% true, since Flash was completely penetrated by various security holes, allowing hackers to do almost anything with devices that support this technology .
Not so long ago in the IT world there was a very unpleasant incident. The Italian company Hacking Team, which was engaged in helping spies and governments of different countries spy on each other, itself was under the hood of the hackers. It's surprising that the company, created by professional hackers and cyber security experts, was defenseless before the first serious attack in its address. Attackers managed to steal more than 400 gigabytes of valuable data, which shed light on a number of rather piquant details. One leak allowed to understand that the plug-in Adobe Flash from the first day of its existence contained exploits, allowing hackers to monitor with impunity any computer on which it is installed.
Heads of the company Hacking Team first tried to justify themselves and even threaten those people who distributed their secret documents on the Web, but then, under public pressure, they acknowledged their mistakes. Among the clients of the hacker's company were special services of such countries as the USA, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, Egypt and many others. During its existence, Hacking Team has earned hundreds of millions of dollars, helping customers to use the holes in the computer security of their potential enemies.
Flash technology allowed hackers to gain full control over the victim's computer by downloading Trojan applications for remote access to it. In this case, Adobe, it seems, was not even aware of the existence of such a "backdoor" in the code of its product. Of course, after the publication of secret documents Adobe suddenly realized and promised to patch all the hacker loopholes in the shortest possible time. But it is unlikely that it will restore the tarnished reputation of the company, famous for its software packages for employees in the creative sphere.
Head of Security of Facebook Alex Stamos urged all heads of other large companies to declare war on Flash technology, in order to achieve its full disappearance from the Web as quickly as possible. Stamos was joined by his colleague from the corporation Mozilla Mark Schmidt, who in his Twitter announced that the Firefox browser will now block any Flash-content by default. But if a user wants to risk his security, he can return the ability to view Flash using the settings.
What will happen with the technology of Flash on - is still unclear. On the one hand, even Adobe itself has not supported its plug-in for mobile platforms anymore, but on the other hand - because millions of games have been written on Flash and thousands of websites have been created. What will happen to them? Mozilla is currently testing its own Shumway technology, which is capable of rendering Flash content using only the HTML5 platform. In principle, this approach can solve security problems without losing any content on the Web.
The article is based on materials .
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