CVE-2015-8455 in Flash Player
Summary
by MITRE
Adobe Flash Player before 18.0.0.268 and 19.x and 20.x before 20.0.0.228 on Windows and OS X and before 11.2.202.554 on Linux, Adobe AIR before 20.0.0.204, Adobe AIR SDK before 20.0.0.204, and Adobe AIR SDK & Compiler before 20.0.0.204 allow attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption) via unspecified vectors, a different vulnerability than CVE-2015-8045, CVE-2015-8047, CVE-2015-8060, CVE-2015-8408, CVE-2015-8416, CVE-2015-8417, CVE-2015-8418, CVE-2015-8419, CVE-2015-8443, CVE-2015-8444, and CVE-2015-8451.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/01/2022
Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR runtime environments suffered from a critical memory corruption vulnerability that enabled remote code execution and denial of service attacks. This vulnerability existed in multiple product versions across different operating systems and was distinct from several other reported flaws in the same year. The flaw manifested through unspecified attack vectors that allowed malicious actors to manipulate memory structures within the Flash Player runtime, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution on affected systems. The vulnerability affected Windows and macOS versions of Flash Player prior to 18.0.0.268 and 19.x and 20.x versions before 20.0.0.228, while Linux versions were impacted before 11.2.202.554. Adobe AIR products and their corresponding SDKs were also vulnerable, with the same version thresholds applying to the remediation. This memory corruption issue represents a classic heap-based buffer overflow scenario where attacker-controlled data could overwrite memory regions, potentially allowing for code injection attacks. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-121, heap-based buffer overflow, and CWE-125, out-of-bounds read, which are common attack patterns in runtime environments. From an operational perspective, this flaw posed significant risk to organizations relying on Flash content, as it could be exploited through web browsers or standalone applications that utilized the Flash runtime. Attackers could craft malicious SWF files or web content that would trigger the memory corruption when processed by the vulnerable Flash Player, leading to complete system compromise. The exploitability of this vulnerability was heightened by the widespread deployment of Flash Player across enterprise environments, making it an attractive target for cybercriminals seeking to gain unauthorized access to systems. The impact extended beyond simple denial of service, as successful exploitation could result in full system compromise, data exfiltration, and persistent backdoor access. Organizations were advised to immediately update to patched versions of Flash Player and AIR runtime components, as the vulnerability had been actively exploited in the wild. The remediation process required careful coordination across multiple software components, including browser plugins, standalone applications, and development tools. Security professionals should have implemented network monitoring to detect exploitation attempts and deployed application whitelisting policies to prevent execution of vulnerable Flash content. This vulnerability demonstrated the ongoing challenges in securing rich internet applications and highlighted the importance of maintaining up-to-date security patches across all runtime environments. The issue also emphasized the need for organizations to transition away from Flash-based technologies due to their inherent security risks and the difficulty of maintaining secure implementations in complex runtime environments. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability mapped to techniques involving exploitation of known vulnerabilities and privilege escalation through memory corruption attacks, representing a significant threat to enterprise security infrastructure.