Flash

Cyber-spies have planted Java- and Flash-exploiting malware on web sites focused on human rights, defence and foreign policy. Over the last two weeks, the Shadowserver Foundation, a nonprofit group that tracks internet threats, has discovered several such compromised web pages that download the malware through visitors' browsers. The malware, which exploits known flaws in Adobe Flash and Java, is aimed at Mac and Windows systems.

A Flash vulnerability that's being exploited by hackers, to gain control of victims' machines, is the target of a security update released over the weekend by Adobe.

"There are reports that the vulnerability is being exploited in the wild, in active targeted attacks, designed to trick the user into clicking on a malicious file delivered in an email message," Adobe said in a security bulletin.

Contrary to reports by several security companies, the Flashback botnet is not shrinking, the Russian antivirus firm that first reported the massive infection three weeks ago claimed today.