The End of Flash Player; The End of a Security Vulnerability

On July 25, 2017, the official website of Adobe, the producer of Flash Player, announced the end of Flash Player, which was met with a very positive response from various companies active in the internet and technology sectors. According to Adobe's announcement, the company will stop producing and updating Flash Player by the end of 2020 (January 11, 2021), and from this date onwards, internet users will no longer be able to use tools and websites that operate based on Flash Player. Although this news may seem shocking and sad at first glance, it should be considered good and joyful news, as Flash Player has been one of the main factors in infiltrating computers and various systems in recent years, to the extent that it can be regarded as a bug rather than software in the digital world! The reason for this claim relates to various security vulnerabilities that have been continuously found in this software, sometimes on a weekly basis. For instance, in 2017 alone, 56 security vulnerabilities were discovered in Flash Player, a shocking figure indicating that, on average, a security vulnerability was found every four days. Additionally, looking at news in the world of digital security, one can easily find dozens of cyberattacks that occurred solely through Flash Player. For example, the cybersecurity group Hacking Team exploited several security vulnerabilities in Flash Player in 2015 to gain access to the Windows operating system, which they sold to governments and intelligence organizations worldwide. Cybercriminals have also used various security vulnerabilities in Flash Player to spread different ransomware in recent years, generating income for themselves. For instance, the Locky ransomware infiltrated various computers through a security vulnerability in Flash Player, encrypting all the data on those computers. Therefore, the news of the end of Flash Player should be considered a joyful announcement because with the end of Flash Player in 2021, one of the popular methods among governments, intelligence agencies, and cybercriminals is coming to an end, thus taking a step towards a more secure digital world. However, websites and services that still use Flash Player have about three years to transition their websites and services to new technologies like HTML5 to ensure continued functionality after February 2021. Ultimately, if you want to get rid of Flash Player now, you can visit the 'Occupy Flash Player' campaign to find various methods to remove this dangerous tool from your computer. Note that with the popularity of new technologies like HTML5, you no longer need Flash Player for browsing and various online services, and you can easily and without any issues remove this software from your computer and mobile device. By removing this software, whenever you receive a message about Flash Player not being up to date on various websites, simply disregard them as these messages are fake, as it is impossible for your Flash Player to be outdated if such software is not installed on your computer or mobile device.