An exploit has been discovered in Macromedia's Flash player that could let hackers execute malicious code on a user's computer.
According to Macromedia, more than 436 million copies of the Flash player have been downloaded from its site, accounting for 98 percent of Web users.
The exploit appears to have been independently discovered by Macromedia, which has already issued a fixed version of the Flash player, and by security software firm eEye Digital Security, which was credited last year with discovering and naming the Code Red virus.
Marc Maiffret, chief hacking officer at eEye, attributed the Macromedia Flash flaw to a buffer overflow vulnerability connected to an ActiveX control called Flash.ocx. "This attack can be performed via some HTML email clients, as well as when visitors visit malicious Web sites," he said.
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