Flash Player Update Includes Privacy, Security Fixes

Adobe on Thursday issued a Flash Player update that quashes a number of critical security flaws and introduces an easier way for users to delete Flash cookies, which can be abused to track users' browsing habits.

In an effort to improve user privacy, the update, Flash Player 10.3, integrates with various web browsers to allow users to easily manage and delete Flash Player local storage, also known as local shared objects (LSOs) or Flash cookies, in a similar way that browser cookies are cleared today.

Much like browser cookies, Flash cookies are a mechanism to store information about a user's preferences for websites that use Adobe Flash.

Researchers have warned since 2009 that some websites and advertising networks abuse Flash cookies to restore browser cookies after they have been deleted by a user, a process known as "browser cookie respawning," which effectively bypasses users' efforts to avoid being tracked online.