Adobe Releases Flash Player 11.3 With Additional Security for Mac

Adobe has announced the release of Flash Player 11.3 which brings additional security for Mac and Firefox users.

Security Improvements:
● Flash Player Protected Mode ("sandboxing") is now available for Firefox users on Windows.
● For Mac users, this release will include the background updater for Mac OS X.
● This release and all future Flash Player releases for Mac OS X will be signed with an Apple Developer ID, so that Flash Player can work with the new Gatekeeper technology for Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8).

Protected Mode:
Flash Player 11.3 brings the first production release of Flash Player Protected Mode for Firefox on Windows, which we first announced in February. This sandboxing technology is based on the same approach that is used within the Adobe Reader X Protected Mode sandbox. Flash Player Protected Mode for Firefox is another step in our efforts to raise the cost for attackers seeking to leverage a Flash Player bug in a working exploit that harms end-users. This approach has been very successful in protecting Adobe Reader X users, and we hope Flash Player Protected Mode will provide the same level of protection for Firefox users. For those interested in a more technical description of the sandbox, please see the blog post titled Inside Flash Player Protected Mode for Firefox authored by ASSET and the Flash Player team.


Background Updater:
The background updater being delivered for Mac OS X uses the same design as the Flash Player updater on Windows. If the user chooses to accept background updates, then the Mac Launch Daemon will launch the background updater every hour to check for updates until it receives a response from the Adobe server. If the server responds that no update is available, the system will begin checking again 24 hours later. If a background update is available, the background updater can download and install the update without interrupting the end-user's session with a prompt.

Gatekeeper:
With Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8), Apple introduced a feature called "Gatekeeper," which can help end-users distinguish trusted applications from potentially dangerous applications. Gatekeeper checks a developer's unique Apple Developer ID to verify that an application is not known malware and that it hasn't been tampered with. Starting with Flash Player 11.3, Adobe has started signing releases for Mac OS X using an Apple Developer ID certificate. Therefore, if the Gatekeeper setting is set to "Mac App Store and identified developers," end-users will be able to install Flash Player without being blocked by Gatekeeper. If Gatekeeper blocks the installation of Flash Player with this setting, the end-user may have been subject to a phishing attack. That said, a reminder that Flash Player should only be downloaded from the www.adobe.com website.

You can download the Flash update from here.