'End of Technical Support' Adobe Flash Security Hole Blocked... Dedicated Vaccine Distributed

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Jo] The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) announced that they will operate an emergency response system, including distributing a dedicated vaccine starting from the 2nd, ahead of the scheduled end of Adobe Flash technical support at the end of this month. This is to respond to security threats exploiting Flash vulnerabilities.

Adobe Flash is a software technology that enables the creation of websites capable of producing and playing content such as animations, games, and music within browsers. As web browsers primarily use open web standard technologies (HTML5, WebGL, etc.), the use of the non-standard Flash has decreased, and technical support ended in December 2020.

Accordingly, patch updates that fix vulnerabilities have also stopped, so if users do not use the latest web browsers or install Flash manually to operate it, they may be exposed to threats such as infection by new malware exploiting security vulnerabilities or hacking.

Therefore, the Ministry of Science and ICT plans to strengthen monitoring of Adobe Flash-related vulnerabilities for rapid response to security threats and produce and distribute dedicated vaccines to block malware outbreaks. In addition, in case of security incidents, they will activate an emergency response system with vaccine companies, telecommunications companies, and others to fully prevent the spread of damage.

Furthermore, they will guide designated and reported companies with Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) and major private sector information and communication infrastructure on measures following the end of technical support, and continue to support the transition to web standards by providing practical web standard education to web developers.

Son Seunghyun, Director of Information Security Network Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, “Once technical support ends, new malware exploiting vulnerabilities can spread to websites or users’ PCs, so it is more important than anything for companies’ websites to transition to web standards.” He added, “The Ministry of Science and ICT will not only support the transition to web standards to ensure websites function safely but also do its best to prevent security incidents through rapid situation dissemination and monitoring.”