Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Should www-plugins/adobe-flash have "stable" versions?
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 06:19:24
Message-Id: 558CEEC3.6090706@gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-user] Should www-plugins/adobe-flash have "stable" versions? by Andrew Savchenko
1 On 26/06/2015 08:12, Andrew Savchenko wrote:
2 > Hi,
3 >
4 > On Thu, 25 Jun 2015 16:02:00 -0700 walt wrote:
5 >> Title: Adobe Releases Emergency to Patch Zero Day Under Active
6 >> Exploitation in the Wild
7 >> Description: Adobe released an out-of-band patch to address
8 >> CVE-2015-3113, a Flash Player zero-day vulnerability that is actively
9 >> being used by an APT group. The exploit has been ongoing since early
10 >> this month via phishing emails and affects Windows, Mac, and Linux
11 >> users. CVE-2015-3113 is a vulnerability in the way Flash parses Flash
12 >> Video Files (FLV). The exploit bypasses memory-based protection such
13 >> as ASLR and uses return-oriented programming (ROP) to bypass data
14 >> execution prevention (DEP).
15 >> Reference:
16 >> https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player/apsb15-14.html
17 >>
18 >> I see that the gentoo devs have already added the latest version to my
19 >> ~amd64 machine (thanks, team) but what about all the people who are
20 >> running stable gentoo?
21 >
22 > Taking how intensive vulnerability rate for adobe-flash is and
23 > considering its closed nature (e.g. no ability to fix issues in
24 > time yourself) I'd recommend to avoid its use at all. For cases
25 > where it can't be replaced (e.g. with gnash or html5-compatible
26 > browser) use isolated container or vm.
27
28
29 I was going to answer much the same, you beat me to it :-)
30
31 Flash's track record puts packagers in a very awkward position - the
32 manpower to keep up with patches in a reasonable timeframe is just too
33 much. So the devs do the best they can but ultimately the user must make
34 a hard decision (convenience vs security) and accept full consequences
35 of their decision.
36
37 I personally think that stable Flash is a joke and it's one of those
38 packages that a user must keyword. Or invest the time/effort in your
39 other suggestion of an isolated browser.
40
41 Tough choice, but that's how it goes with such software
42
43
44
45 --
46 Alan McKinnon
47 alan.mckinnon@×××××.com