Facebook's security chief calls for Adobe Flash to be killed off

Poor old Adobe Flash. Hardly anybody seems to love it.

And this isn’t a new phenomenon.

Remember the controversy all those years ago, when it became clear that Apple had no plans to ever support Flash on the iPhone and iPad? The late Steve Jobs even took to his keyboard to write a lengthy explanation of why he would not allow Flash on his devices – citing a number of reasons including battery life, reliability and security.

Security is, of course, likely to be a major concern of readers of the Hot for Security blog – and it’s true to say that Adobe Flash has been frequently targeted by online criminals who exploit flaws in the software to infect innocent people’s computers.

Just last week Adobe was forced to issue a patch for yet-another zero-day vulnerability that had been spotted in several exploit kits after details of the flaw became public following the massive security breach at spyware company Hacking Team.

And now Adobe has warned of two more critical vulnerabilities in Flash which are being publicly exploited. Adobe says it hopes to issue fixes for these two zero-day vulnerabilities, which could allow hackers to take control of innocent computers, sometime this week.

It’s perhaps not surprising that some think it’s time for Adobe Flash to call it a day, pack its bags, and leave town for good.

Amongst those who would be happy to see the back of Adobe Flash is Alex Stamos, Facebook’s newly-appointed security chief.

In a tweet this weekend, Stamos – who is a respected member of the security community who is credited for improving the security stance of Yahoo at his previous job – said that it was time for Adobe to announce when Flash would be killed off, and for browsers to assist by dropping support at the same time.

“It is time for Adobe to announce the end-of-life date for Flash and to ask the browsers to set killbits on the same day.”

In a follow-up tweet, Stamos said that Adobe’s death date didn’t have to be today or tomorrow – but a date had to be set in stone for systems to be made more secure:

“Even if 18 months from now, one set date is the only way to disentangle the dependencies and upgrade the whole ecosystem at once.”

If Adobe Flash is ever going to be kicked to the kerb (as it seems it should be) then a date clearly needs to be declared to drive the push to a Flash-free world. It’s not just important for browsers, of course, but also for companies whose websites and in-house applications might rely heavily on the technology.

The problem is that perhaps Adobe doesn’t feel happy acknowledging that securing Flash is beyond them, and so is unwilling to drop the product. The truth is that the company would probably gain a lot more respect from the internet community if it worked towards this ultimate fix for the Flash problem, rather than clinging on to the belief that it might be able to one day make Flash secure.

As it is, the only people who truly seem to love Adobe Flash these days are the criminals themselves.