EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Adobe Flash is known for its bugginess. So much so that many have slowly stepped away from it, or in some cases, disabled it. Now a new vulnerability is being exploited by hackers who are launching cyberattacks at Microsoft Windows computers.

Cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs reports that cyberattackers are using the previously unknown flaw to target Microsoft Office douments with embedded malicious Flash content. Adobe is planning to address the issue the week of February 5, according to Krebs.

In the meantime, Krebs offers these workarounds:

Disable Flash in Chrome. “Paste ‘chrome://settings/content’ into a Chrome browser bar and then select “Flash” from the list of items. By default it should be set to ‘Ask first’ before running Flash, although users also can disable Flash entirely here or whitelist and blacklist specific sites.”

Check your Mozilla Firefox settings. “By default, Mozilla Firefox on Windows computers with Flash installed runs Flash in a ‘protected mode,’ which prompts the user to decide if they want to enable the plugin before Flash content runs on a Web site.

Limit Flash to your least favorite browser. Krebs suggests keeping Flash installed in a browser you don’t use unless a site requires Flash.

Read the full story at Krebs on Security.