Apple’s Snow Leopard Ships With Older, Vulnerable Version of Flash

Apple’s new Snow Leopard operating system includes a few security enhancements protecting users from malware, but the OS shipped with a downgraded version of Adobe Flash with known vulnerabilities.

Anti-virus software company Sonos discovered the security issue and documented it in the video above accompanied with an explanatory blog post.

“Mac users are not informed that Snow Leopard has downgraded their version of Flash without permission, and that they are now exposed to a raft of potential attacks and exploits which have been targeted on Adobe’s software in recent months,” wrote Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos.

Adobe acknowledged the downgrade in a blog post and recommended for Snow Leopard users to upgrade to the latest, most secure version.

Sonos highlights an issue raised in a Wired.com article published Wednesday on the topic of Snow Leopard and security. Security researchers told Wired.com that the Mac platform is less secure because it lacks some security features that Windows operating systems have had for years. However, they said the Mac is safer because it’s a smaller target for “the bad guys” due to Apple’s 10-percent PC marketshare.

An earlier Wired.com article published in December also touched on the issue that many pieces of malware are no longer platform dependent. Mike Romo, Symantec’s product manager for Mac antivirus software, said a lot of new malware is “platform-agnostic,” because hackers are mostly attacking online shoppers with phishing scams and other internet-based methods. Adobe Flash is an example of a web format that works on both Mac and Windows platforms; Flash’s vulnerabilities apply to both.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Photo: Tambako/Flickr