Adobe Flash Player For Mac Malware

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Adobe Flash Player is a free software plug-in used by web browsers to view multimedia, execute rich Internet applications, and stream video on your Mac.

The Snake malware was found earlier this week in an installer masquerading as Adobe Flash Player, buried inside a file named 'Install Adobe Flash Player.app.zip.' It is designed to look like a.

  • Remove Fake Adobe Player Update virus on Mac: The EASY way The most secure way to remove the Fake Adobe Player update virus on a Mac is to install some antivirus software on your Mac. We recommend Norton Security as it posted the best scores during 2018’s tests.
  • If you continue to have problems with removal of the adobe flash player update virus, reset your Internet Explorer settings to default. Windows XP users: Click Start, click Run, in the opened window type inetcpl.cpl In the opened window click the Advanced tab, then click Reset.

Adobe Flash Player is the most popular multimedia player plug-in available. However, recently there have been security concerns which has threatened its popularity as users seek safer alternative solutions. Opera, Firefox and Chrome contain built-in versions of Flash running in sandbox mode. This method is safer than running Flash as a plugin. However, currently the reality is that you still may need the Adobe Flash Player on your Mac because many websites will not work well if you uninstall it. Here I’ll show you how to install Adobe Flash Player and how to set it up correctly.

How to install Adobe Flash Player on your Mac.

1. Go to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ to download the Adobe Flash Player installer.

2. By default, the installer package will be downloaded to your “Downloads” folder.

3. Select the file on your Mac and double click to install it.

4. Select “Allow Adobe to install updates (recommended)” and click “DONE” to complete the installation.

If you installed Adobe Flash Player, but still cannot view online videos on certain websites, you need to check Adobe Flash Player on your browsers.

How to set up Adobe Flash Player on various browsers.

Safari

1. Launch Safari and go to the Apple menu bar and click Preferences.

2. Select the Websites tab and select On for “When visiting other websites.”

3. Refresh the browser tab, or restart the browser.

Google Chrome

1. Launch Chrome and type chrome://settings/content in the address field.

2. Select “Ask first (recommended)” and turn it on.

3. Refresh the browser tab or restart the browser.

Opera

1. Launch Opera and go to the Apple menu bar and click Preferences.

2. Select the Websites tab and then select “Allow sites to run Flash”

3. Refresh the browser tab or restart the browser.

Firefox

1. Launch Firefox and go to the Apple menu bar and click Tools – Add-ons.

2. Click the Plugins tab and turn the “Shockwave Flash” to “Always Activate.”

Note: (SWF (Shock Wave Flash) is a special format created by Macromedia, which has been acquired by Adobe. It is widely used in web design, animation production and other fields.)

For enhancing the user experience and security, Adobe is always trying to improve Adobe Flash Player. However, sometimes when you view a website, a Flash Player upgrade popup appears. Most people would click the “update” button to update their Flash Player, but this could be a false popup used by hackers to compromise your Mac. This is a method hackers use to trick you into downloading adware and malware through a false popup.

Be careful and don’t trust any automatic updates of Adobe Flash Player. Here I will tell you how to install real Flash Player updates and set it up.

How to update Flash Player on Mac safely

1. Go to the Apple menu bar and select System Preferences.

Malware

2. Select Flash Player.

3. Select the Updates tab and select “Allow Adobe to install updates (recommended)”. (Note: The Flash plug-in is officially updated 1~2 times a month, so selecting this option avoids frequent update.)

4. You may now notice that the Flash Update settings now shows NPAPI and PPAPI plugins. Let me explain them.

NPAPI – used by Safari, Firefox

PPAPI – used by Chromium, Opera and Chrome (Chrome’s implementation is built in)

5. Click Check Now to confirm that you currently have the latest version installed.

If you had clicked a false popup and downloaded adware, don’t worry, the Apple App Store has many antivirus apps, such as Trend Micro’s Dr. Antivirus, that you can use to do a free scan.

Follow the steps below in case you downloaded a fake Adobe Flash Player.

1. When you first install Dr. Antivirus, click “Pattern Update” to make sure your virus pattern is up to date. We suggest you update the virus pattern every day.

2. After the first installation, we highly suggest you perform a full scan of your Mac to check all files for possible infections. The Full scan will take more than one hour.

3. If you still find adware and a full scan has not found any viruses, we recommend you use Adware Cleaner. You can access Adware Cleaner in the left panel of the Dr. Antivirus window.

How to uninstall Adobe Flash Player

Adobe Flash Player for the Mac is a plug-in, not a Mac OS X application. When you try to uninstall Adobe Flash Player from your Mac, you might find that this plug-in is not so easy to delete. For example, you might see this message:

Cannot find Adobe Flash Player in your Applications folder.

In this case, Adobe Flash Player could not be removed and no reason was given. The following steps show how to uninstall Adobe Flash Player with no remaining parts.

Download Adobe Flash Player For Windows 7

1. Go to the /Applications/Utilities/ folder on your Mac and double-click the Adobe Flash Player Install Manager app.

2. Click Uninstall to begin the process.

3. Type the password and click Install Helper.


4. If your browser is running, the following window will appear. Select “Force Close All” to continue.

5. After the uninstaller removes the Adobe Flash software from your Mac, click Done.

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Snake, also known as Turla and Uroburos, is backdoor malware that has been around and infecting Windows systems since at least 2008. It is thought to be Russian governmental malware and on Windows is highly-sophisticated. It was even seen infecting Linux systems in 2014. Now, it appears to have been ported to Mac.

Fox-IT International wrote about the discovery of a Mac version of Snake on Tuesday. It’s not known at this point how Snake is spread, although the fact that it imitates an Adobe Flash Player installer suggests a not-very-sophisticated method. (I mean, come on, there are other pieces of software out there! Why are the bad guys so hung up on Flash installers?)

Distribution method

The malware was found in a file named Install Adobe Flash Player.app.zip. The app inside the .zip file would appear to be a legit Adobe Flash Player installer. The app is signed, however, by a certificate issued to an “Addy Symonds” rather than Adobe, but the average user is never going to know that… as long as it’s signed, Apple’s Gatekeeper system will allow it, when set to its default settings.

If the app is opened, it will immediately ask for an admin user password, which is typical behavior for a real Flash installer. If such a password is provided, the behavior continues to be consistent with the real thing.

Proceeding through the installation to the end will display no suspicious behavior and in the end, Flash will actually be installed. This is a significant break from other fake Flash installers, which at best download the real Flash installer and open it separately after proceeding through a completely unconvincing fake install process.

It turns out that this is because the app incorporates a real Flash installer. The app has a rather strange internal structure, lacking the normal structure of an application bundle on macOS. It works, though.

Flash player malware removal mac

When the app runs, a malicious executable named Install – also code-signed by Addy Symonds – runs first. That process, in turn, executes an included shell script named install.sh:

This script installs the following components of the malware:

Next, the script opens the installd.sh shell script then launches the real Install Adobe Flash Player process, which performs the actual installation of Flash. By the time the Flash installer interface appears, the machine is already infected.

The installd.sh script, which is also run by the installed launch daemon, simply checks to see if the malicious installdp process is running and if it isn’t, launches it.

At this point, once installdp is running, the malware is fully functional, providing a backdoor into the Mac, configured according to the data found in the queue file.

Flash Player Virus On Mac

Impact

In all, this is one of the sneakier bits of Mac malware lately. Although it’s still “just a Trojan,” it’s a quite convincing one if distributed properly. Although Mac users tend to scoff at Trojans, believing them to be easy to avoid, this is not always the case.

Trojans can be effective even when they’re junk and the social engineering behind them is poor. Consider how bad it would be if someone were to receive this file in a convincing spoofed e-mail, supposedly from their IT department or a close friend, telling them to install it immediately due to a recent Flash vulnerability! As a spear phishing attack, this could be used with devastating effect.

Further, the installed components of the malware are quite effective as well. Few people even know that the /Library/Scripts/ folder exists, so that’s a moderately safe place to dump a payload (although there are better options). The launch daemon is quite unremarkable since anyone with Adobe software will have other Adobe launch agents or daemons installed. The average person won’t know this one isn’t legitimate.

Flash Player Update Mac Virus

Flash player for mac os. Fortunately, Apple revoked the certificate very quickly, so this particular installer is no further danger unless the user is tricked into downloading it via a method that doesn’t mark it with a quarantine flag (such as via most torrent apps). Malwarebytes for Mac will detect it as OSX.Snake and removal, in this case, is a breeze.

Mac Adobe Flash Player Virus

If you’re infected, however, as with any backdoor, it’s important to keep in mind that data may have been stolen, including passwords and any unencrypted files on the hard drive. Keep in mind that, even if you use File Vault, the files are decrypted as long as you’re logged in, so this doesn’t really count.

Adobe Flash Player For Android

After removing the malware (and restarting the computer), change your passwords and make sure that you’ve taken any other necessary steps to mitigate damage due to the possibility of exfiltrated data. And, as always, if this is a business machine, contact IT so they know about the issue and can take any necessary measures to mitigate risk to the company.