Adobe Flash Player Reaches End of Life on December 31, 2020

In July 2017, Adobe announced that Adobe Flash Player will reach “End of Life” (EOL) on Thursday, December 31, 2020. After this date, Adobe Flash Player will no longer be supported or distributed by Adobe.

Adobe says that once Flash reaches its EOL date, there will be no further updates or security patches. Adobe would also prompt users to uninstall Flash Player and plans to remove all Flash Player download links from their website. In addition, Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12, 2021. Some of the major browser vendors have collaborated on this effort and will disable Flash Player in respective browsers by the end of 2020: Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla.

Microsoft stated: “After December 2020, you will no longer receive ‘Security Update for Adobe Flash Player’ from Microsoft that applies to Microsoft Edge Legacy and Internet Explorer 11.”

We recommend users to stop using Adobe Flash before Dec 31 and uninstall all installations of Flash Player in their environment. Windows and Mac users can follow these instructions to uninstall Flash.

Identify Adobe Flash Assets using Global IT Asset Inventory 

Qualys Global IT Asset Inventory automatically extends your asset context with non-discoverable metadata, such as hardware and software product release dates, end-of-life dates, license categories, and more. Teams can detect a variety of issues, such as unauthorized software, outdated hardware or end-of-life software, which can help you to properly support and secure critical assets.

Asset Inventory not only provides information on software that has reached end of life, but it also allows you to view installed software that will be reaching end of life in the near future.

Detect Adobe Flash End of Life QID using Qualys VMDR 

Qualys VMDR automatically detects new vulnerabilities like End-of-Life QIDs based on the always updated Knowledgebase.

You can see all your impacted hosts with Adobe Flash installed in the vulnerabilities view by using this QQL query:

 vulnerabilities.vulnerability.qid:45118 

An EOL QID for Adobe Flash Player is released on December 30, 2020.

QID 105943  :  EOL/Obsolete Software: Adobe Flash Player Detected 

With Qualys Unified Dashboard, you can track Adobe Flash vulnerabilities, impacted hosts, their status and overall management in real time. Enable trending so you can keep track of these vulnerability trends across your environments.

See the Adobe Vulnerability Tracking Dashboard.

Solution 

We recommend users to stop using Adobe Flash before Dec 31 and uninstall all installation of Flash Player in their environment. Windows and Mac users can follow these instructions to uninstall Flash.

Get Started Now  

Start your Qualys VMDR trial for automatically identifying and detecting EOL software in your environment.