James Delahunty
5 Sep 2009 23:57
Mozilla Corp. has confirmed that with upcoming versions of the Firefox browser, 3.5.3 and 3.0.14, users will be prompted via the "What's New" landing page if they have outdated and possibly insecure versions of Adobe Flash installed. Flash vulnerabilities are used to install malware on the computers of unsuspecting users running versions vulnerable to exploitation.
The "What's New" landing page is generally automatically loaded when new versions of Firefox are installed. Javascript on the page will detect the Flash version installed on the computer and will prompt the user of available updates. A user running an outdated version of Adobe flash would receive the following warning...
Whereas users running the latest/safe version of Adobe Flash software will receive the following message...
"Mozilla will work with other plugin vendors to provide similar checks for their products in the future. Keeping your software up to date remains one of the best things you can do to keep yourself safe online, and Mozilla will continue to look for ways to make that process as easy as possible for its users," a Mozilla blog announcement reads.