The Patch Tuesday security update due in July should hammer the last nail in the coffin of Adobe Flash Player
Microsoft has updated its roadmap for eliminating Adobe Flash Player from the Windows 10 operating system. Starting in July, the removal of the piece of software that has helped shape the internet will become a mandatory part of the Windows 10 update cycle.
In an update to its Flash Player End of Support blog, the Redmond tech titan explained the process behind the rollout of the KB4577586 Windows update that will remove Adobe Flash Player as a component of Windows-powered devices, unless the users will uninstall it themselves.
In June 2021, Microsoft will release KB4577586 as part of the Preview Update for Windows 10 versions 1809 and above, and it will later add it to every subsequent Latest Cumulative update (LCU).
“As of July 2021, the KB4577586 ‘Update for Removal of Adobe Flash Player’ will be included in the Latest Cumulative Update for Windows 10, versions 1607 and Windows 10, version 1507. The KB will also be included in the Monthly Rollup and the Security Only Update for Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Embedded 8 Standard,” reads the update of Microsoft’s recent blog post.
The company added that users who update to Windows 10 version 21H1 or later will have Flash removed automatically. However, should you wish to get rid of Adobe Flash sooner, Microsoft allows you to do so by manually installing KB4577586, which can be found in its Microsoft Update Catalog.
A long time coming
In July 2017 Microsoft, Adobe, and a consortium of their partners announced that Adobe Flash Player would no longer be supported past December 2020. The decision was made because safer and more efficient options such as HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly have largely supplanted the old technology.
In January 2021, the popular component was disabled by default for the majority of Windows users. However, enterprise customers, for example, still had the option to use it under specific conditions. All major browsers had also by then ended support for Flash Player.
Over the course of its existence, Flash Player has been plagued with multiple security issues, including critical security vulnerabilities. Its long and troubled history of misuse by bad actors of various ilk includes a malicious knock-off version on Google Play and, as ESET research has also shown, faux Adobe Flash Player installers have been used by the Turla APT group in order to trick their targets into downloading malware.
