Software Engineering Institute

Adobe Macromedia Shockwave Player is software that plays active web content developed in Macromedia and Adobe Director. Shockwave Player is available as an ActiveX control for Internet Explorer and as a plug-in for other web browsers.

Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in Shockwave Player and its Xtra components that can be exploited by an attacker to execute arbitrary code on a user's system. More details are available in Adobe Security Bulletin APSB12-23.

By convincing a user to view a specially crafted HTML document (e.g., a web page or an HTML email message or attachment), Microsoft Office document, or any other document that supports embedded Shockwave content, an attacker may be able to execute arbitrary code

Apply an update

These issues have been addressed in Adobe Shockwave Player 11.6.8.638. Please see Adobe Security Bulletin APSB12-23 for more details.

Limit access to Director files

Restricting the handling of untrusted Director content may help mitigate this vulnerability. See Securing Your Web Browser for more information. Consider using the NoScript extension to whitelist web sites that can run Shockwave Player in Mozilla browsers such as Firefox. See the NoScript FAQ for more information.

Disable the Shockwave Player ActiveX control in Internet Explorer

The Shockwave Player ActiveX control can be disabled in Internet Explorer by setting the kill bit for the following CLSIDs:
{166B1BCA-3F9C-11CF-8075-444553540000}
{233C1507-6A77-46A4-9443-F871F945D258}
Alternatively, the following text can be saved as a .REG file and imported to set the kill bit for this control:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{166B1BCA-3F9C-11CF-8075-444553540000}]
"Compatibility Flags"=dword:00000400
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{166B1BCA-3F9C-11CF-8075-444553540000}]
"Compatibility Flags"=dword:00000400

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{233C1507-6A77-46A4-9443-F871F945D258}]
"Compatibility Flags"=dword:00000400
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{233C1507-6A77-46A4-9443-F871F945D258}]
"Compatibility Flags"=dword:00000400
More information about how to set the kill bit is available in Microsoft Support Document 240797.