HPreleasing free Flash security tool today

Monday, March 23, 2009

HP will release today a free tool for developers to check for security holes in their Flash applications.

Flash is one of the most common applications used for creating animation and games for Web 2.0, which security experts said needs better web security measures to protect against cyberattacks. Approximately 98 percent of internet-connected PCs worldwide have Flash players installed.

HP analyzed nearly 4,000 Flash web apps and found that 35 percent violate Adobe's security best practices. To help developers cut down on security holes, the HP SWFScan tool decompiles Flash applications and searches the code for vulnerabilities, according to HP's web security group.

The tool can scan for exposure of confidential information, cross-domain privilege escalation and Cross-Site Scripting (XSS). Also, the tool alerts developers if the application does not comply with Adobe's security best practices.

Microsoft last year asked HP to develop a tool to test for SQL injection vulnerabilities in applications for Microsoft's ASP platform, security experts said.

IBM has also released a tool that automatically scans Flash and Ajax-based applications for security flaws.

Adobe just issued a patch for a flaw in the Flash player that could allow a remote attacker to take control of a computer.

View more news