CVE-2015-8650 in Flash Player
Summary
by MITRE
Use-after-free vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player before 18.0.0.324 and 19.x and 20.x before 20.0.0.267 on Windows and OS X and before 11.2.202.559 on Linux, Adobe AIR before 20.0.0.233, Adobe AIR SDK before 20.0.0.233, and Adobe AIR SDK & Compiler before 20.0.0.233 allows attackers to execute arbitrary code via unspecified vectors, a different vulnerability than CVE-2015-8634, CVE-2015-8635, CVE-2015-8638, CVE-2015-8639, CVE-2015-8640, CVE-2015-8641, CVE-2015-8642, CVE-2015-8643, CVE-2015-8646, CVE-2015-8647, CVE-2015-8648, and CVE-2015-8649.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/01/2022
The CVE-2015-8650 vulnerability represents a critical use-after-free flaw in Adobe Flash Player and related software components that existed across multiple platform versions and release channels. This vulnerability specifically affected Adobe Flash Player versions prior to 18.0.0.324 and 19.x and 20.x before 20.0.0.267 on Windows and OS X platforms, while also impacting Adobe AIR versions before 20.0.0.233 and related SDK components. The flaw manifested in a manner distinct from several other vulnerabilities in the same timeframe, indicating a unique exploitation vector that required careful analysis of the underlying memory management mechanisms within the Adobe runtime environment. This vulnerability falls under the CWE-416 category of use-after-free conditions, where memory that had been freed is subsequently accessed, creating opportunities for malicious code execution.
The technical exploitation of CVE-2015-8650 leveraged the fundamental weakness in memory management where a program continues to reference memory locations after they have been deallocated from the heap. In the context of Adobe Flash Player, this occurred during the processing of multimedia content or interactive elements that triggered specific object destruction sequences. Attackers could manipulate the timing and sequence of object creation and destruction to cause a use-after-free condition that would allow arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability's exploitation required precise control over memory layout and object references, making it particularly challenging to exploit but not impossible given the right conditions. The attack vector typically involved crafting malicious SWF files or web content that would trigger the specific memory management flaw when processed by the vulnerable Flash Player runtime.
The operational impact of CVE-2015-8650 was significant given the widespread deployment of Adobe Flash Player across enterprise and consumer environments. This vulnerability enabled attackers to bypass traditional security controls and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the Flash Player process, which typically ran with user-level permissions but could potentially be escalated. The vulnerability's presence in multiple versions and platforms meant that organizations needed to rapidly deploy patches across their entire infrastructure, creating operational challenges for security teams managing diverse software environments. The fact that this vulnerability operated outside the scope of other known Flash Player flaws meant that existing security measures and threat detection systems might not have been specifically designed to identify this particular exploitation pattern, potentially allowing the vulnerability to remain undetected for extended periods.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2015-8650 required immediate patch deployment across all affected Adobe Flash Player and AIR installations, with particular attention to the specific version thresholds mentioned in the vulnerability description. Organizations should have implemented comprehensive patch management procedures to ensure rapid deployment of the security updates provided by Adobe, which addressed the underlying memory management issues. Network-based mitigations included implementing content filtering and web application firewalls to prevent execution of potentially malicious Flash content, while endpoint protection measures involved enhanced monitoring for suspicious process behavior and memory access patterns. The vulnerability highlighted the importance of maintaining updated security tooling and ensured that organizations with legacy Flash content had robust migration strategies to reduce dependency on vulnerable software components. Security teams should have also implemented monitoring for exploitation attempts through behavioral analysis of Flash Player processes, as the use-after-free condition could manifest in various ways depending on the specific memory layout and exploitation techniques employed by attackers.