It’s no secret that Windows media applications are the primary source of malware and viruses on most operating systems. Media player companies are constantly battling to stay one step ahead of virus creators, and that means they have to release regular patches to clients.
Most media player patches fix one or two minor vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities might never have been discovered by hackers, but the company is patching them anyway to reduce the chance they might be discovered.
But today, Adobe released a major upgrade to its ShockWave player plugin with a whopping six critical updates. Critical updates mean they fix a threat of the highest level of security, and not downloading an update like this leaves ShockWave users dangerously unprotected.
The patch specifically fixes “buffer overflow vulnerabilities” which could allow hackers to flood a computer with malware-injecting scripts and viruses.
So if you’re a ShockWave user (the plugin is installed on over 450 million computers around the world), you can download the latest security patch at the official Adobe website here. ShockWave is required to play a lot of online content, so if you enjoy playing browser-based games, then it’s important you download this update as soon as possible.
Or, if you want to read more about the issues this patch fixes, then you can read the Adobe press release on the matter here.