E-commerce super giant Amazon.com has officially ban flash advertisements from their site. With the recent slue of Flash Plugins block from the web browsers such as Google Chrome and Firefox, this is the first major E-commerce company to implement a full force flash advertisement block.
Why block flash?
The first big nail in the coffin for flash, is web advertisements with flash, allow the online advertisement itself to forcefully make a unsuspecting computer download and install a program or file.
“Advertisements must not trigger downloads of software to a user's computer without first providing the user with clear and conspicuous disclosures regarding the installation, operation and removal of the software, and providing the user with an opportunity to decline to install the software after such disclosures are made,” according to Amazon.So It Was About Security?
Surprisingly despite the fact that flash is a HUGE vulnerability, Amazon is not blocking it due to its inherent problems. Instead they are blocking flash for a more site appropriate reason, due to the major web browsers blocking the use of flash, online advertisers using flash are seen as inefficient and all around just a bad idea.
“While Amazon may not be directly concerned about the vulnerabilities in Flash, enough users -- and browsers -- have disabled it because of security to effectively force a change from Amazon,’ Tim Erlin said. “If other advertising networks follow suit, it will force attackers to move to a different, and hopefully less effective, platform for malvertizing.”What Did Flash Do?
In July of 2015 a flash vulnerability was uncovered by security researches that had been actively used by hacking organizations for quite some time. The exploits themselves have been publicly published to multiple hacking sites, which Adobe themselves admits. The full scope of what these vulnerabilities are capable of crashing the targeted system and potentially gaining full access and control of that system.
Use A Browser That Blocks Flash Regardless
Adobe flash has a history of zero day exploits coming out all of the time, which is the same reason why there are an endless stream of updates coming in for adobe flash. Blocking flash will not only increase your security, it'll help quell the growth of flash based exploits. Of course there will be a new juggernaut that will grow exponentially fast and become the next adobe flash, but in the mean time, block it as soon as possible.
Summary
Amazon blocked flash to increase ad revenue, everyone else is blocking flash because its a security risk, can't have ad revenue sources blocked and expect to still make money off of them.
And as always, be safe my fellow goblins.
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