back to article Bug in Flash Player allowed Mac webcam spying

Engineers on Thursday patched a hole in Adobe's ubiquitous Flash Player that allowed website operators to silently eavesdrop on visitors' webcam and microphone feeds without permission. To be attacked, visitors needed to do no more than visit a malicious website and click on a handful of buttons like the ones in this live …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Tom 7

    a piece of mallware allows users to view media shock horror probe.

  2. tonysmith

    coming soon to this comment sections:

    PC people: Oh, look! Macs have a virus and are totally insecure! oh loook!

    Apple people: No, No, no we're not, I mean, our macs are not. Windoze sucks!

    etc.

  3. Alister

    Steve must be spinning in his grave!

  4. Jamie Kitson

    Not Sic

    > let along a SWF file

    He actually said "let alone"

  5. Jamie Kitson

    Light

    Hopefully your webcam light would still go on, disabling that would be a real hack :)

  6. HelenaHandcart

    Huh?

    I wanted to read the comments but only have the option to post?http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/unhappy_32.png

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I keep a piece of tape over my webcam when not using it.

    People used to accuse me of being paraoid. Guess I'm having the last laugh now.

  8. Peter Mc Aulay
    FAIL

    Useless features

    From day one I've wondered why Flash would ever need microphone or webcam access, and to this day I've yet to see a single legitimate use for it. Get rid of it if you can't secure it properly Adobe, sheesh. And while you're at it, take Javascript and other rubbish "active content" support out of your PDF reader...

    1. Gordon Fecyk
      Go

      Provide the functionality, and someone will use it.

      "From day one I've wondered why Flash would ever need microphone or webcam access."

      At least one conference app (GVO Live) is written in Flash. It's pretty slick, too. YouTube uses it to record videos from a user's camera instead of making the user upload it.

  9. Mark S 1
    WTF?

    Umm...

    The Flash player settings manager keeps website and global privacy setting data for individual computers on Adobe servers?

    Well, that's a little disconcerting, to say the least.

  10. Lamont Cranston

    Flash invariably fails to detect my webcam, even if I want it to.

    So I guess I'm safe from this.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    any more proof required?

    Just remove this junk from your computer and mobile devices...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hey El Reg - how about sorting out your comments system!

    So we can actually flippin well see what people have posted without waiting a day!

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like