Software Engineering Institute

Adobe Flash Player is a player for the Flash media format and enables frame-based animations with sound to be viewed within a web browser. Adobe Flash Player fails to properly handle long dynamic strings, which allows a buffer overflow to occur. The specific cause of the underlying defect or the malformed strings that could exploit this vulnerability is not known.

Note that Microsoft has released Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-069 to address this issue.

A remote, unauthenticated attacker may be able to execute arbitrary code. Note that an attacker may be able to exploit this vulnerability by convincing a user to access a specially crafted web page.

Upgrade Flash Player
Adobe has addressed this issue in Adobe Flash Player 9.0.16.0.

Apply updates

Users who are unable to upgrade to Adobe Flash Player 9.0.16.0 should apply the appropriate player update listed in Adobe Security Bulletin APSB06-11. Users running operating systems that do not support Adobe Flash Player 8 should refer to the updates in Adobe's Flash Player TechNote. Microsoft has addressed this issue in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-069.

Workarounds

Microsoft has suggested the following workarounds. Please see Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-069 for further information.

• Temporarily prevent the Flash Player ActiveX control from running in Internet Explorer for Windows XP Service Pack 2.
• Temporarily prevent the Flash Player ActiveX control from running in Internet Explorer.
• Modify the access control list on the Flash Player ActiveX control to temporarily prevent it from running in Internet Explorer.
• Un-register the Flash Player ActiveX control.
• Restrict access to the Macromedia Flash folder by using a software restriction policy.
• Change your Internet Explorer settings to prompt you before running ActiveX controls or disable ActiveX controls in the Internet security zone and in the local intranet security zone.
• Set Internet and local intranet security zone settings to “High” to prompt you before running ActiveX controls in these zones.
• Remove the Flash Player from your system.