Posted on Wednesday, June 15 2016 @ 12:05 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Adobe warns attackers are exploiting a security vulnerability in its Flash Player plug-in. The zero-day bug potentially allows a cybercriminal to take control over your system and Adobe says it's used in limited, targeted attacks. A patch is expected tomorrow.
A critical vulnerability (CVE-2016-4171) exists in Adobe Flash Player 21.0.0.242 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and Chrome OS. Successful exploitation could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.
Adobe is aware of a report that an exploit for CVE-2016-4171 exists in the wild, and is being used in limited, targeted attacks. Adobe will address this vulnerability in our monthly security update, which will be available as early as June 16.
Kasperksy
has a bit more information and says ScarCruft is behind these attacks:
ScarCruft is a relatively new APT group; victims have been observed in several countries, including Russia, Nepal, South Korea, China, India, Kuwait and Romania. The group has several ongoing operations utilizing multiple exploits — two for Adobe Flash and one for Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Currently, the group is engaged in two major operations: Operation Daybreak and Operation Erebus. The first of them, Operation Daybreak, appears to have been launched by ScarCruft in March 2016 and employs a previously unknown (0-day) Adobe Flash Player exploit, focusing on high profile victims. The other one, “Operation Erebus” employs an older exploit, for CVE-2016-4117 and leverages watering holes. It is also possible that the group deployed another zero day exploit, CVE-2016-0147, which was patched in April.