Adobe Releases Sandboxed Flash Player For Firefox
Adobe has released a beta version of
Flash Player for Firefox, which has better protection
against vulnerability exploits because of a new
sandboxed architecture.
Adobe's public beta of the new Flash Player sandbox
(aka "Protected Mode") for the Firefox browser
features a sandbox design similar to what Adobe
delivered with Adobe Reader X Protected Mode and
follows the same Practical Windows Sandboxing
approach. Like the Adobe Reader X sandbox, Flash
Player will establish a low integrity, highly
restricted process that must communicate through a
broker to limit its privileged activities. The
sandboxed process is restricted with the same job
limits and privilege restrictions as the Adobe Reader
Protected Mode implementation. Adobe Flash Player
Protected Mode for Firefox 4.0 or later will be
supported on both Windows Vista and Windows 7.
Sandboxing technology has proven effective in protecting users by increasing the cost and complexity of authoring effective exploits. For example, since its launch in November 2010, Adobe says it has not seen a single successful exploit in the wild against Adobe Reader X. Adobe hopes to see similar results with the Flash Player sandbox for Firefox once the final version is released later this year.
Adobe decided to implement sandboxing in Adobe Reader back in 2010 in order to counter the large number of exploits that targeted the product and its users.
However, because Internet Explorer has a completely different plug-in architecture than Chrome and Firefox (ActiveX,) developing a sandboxed Flash Player version for requires a different approach. Nevertheless, the current version of Flash Player supports Protected Mode in Internet Explorer 7 or later on Windows Vista and Windows 7.
Sandboxing technology has proven effective in protecting users by increasing the cost and complexity of authoring effective exploits. For example, since its launch in November 2010, Adobe says it has not seen a single successful exploit in the wild against Adobe Reader X. Adobe hopes to see similar results with the Flash Player sandbox for Firefox once the final version is released later this year.
Adobe decided to implement sandboxing in Adobe Reader back in 2010 in order to counter the large number of exploits that targeted the product and its users.
However, because Internet Explorer has a completely different plug-in architecture than Chrome and Firefox (ActiveX,) developing a sandboxed Flash Player version for requires a different approach. Nevertheless, the current version of Flash Player supports Protected Mode in Internet Explorer 7 or later on Windows Vista and Windows 7.