CVE-2013-0643 — Flash Player
HIGHCVE-2013-0643 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in adobe flash player. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2024-09-17) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
The Firefox sandbox in Adobe Flash Player before 10.3.183.67 and 11.x before 11.6.602.171 on Windows and Mac OS X, and before 10.3.183.67 and 11.x before 11.2.202.273 on Linux, does…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2024-09-17. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2024-10-08.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2013-0643.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2013-0643 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
The Firefox sandbox in Adobe Flash Player before 10.3.183.67 and 11.x before 11.6.602.171 on Windows and Mac OS X, and before 10.3.183.67 and 11.x before 11.2.202.273 on Linux, does not properly restrict privileges, which makes it easier for remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via crafted SWF content, as exploited in the wild in February 2013.
Affected Products
flash playeradobeResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every adobe flash player deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2013-0643 yet — track the adobe flash player advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Close the privilege gap rather than the entry point: audit which accounts, roles and service identities can reach the affected operation, drop the component to the least privilege it actually needs, and review file and directory permissions created by earlier installs — a default left in place is what makes this reachable. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Supplementary for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 | flash-plugin-0:11.2.202.273-1.el5 | RHSA-2013:0574 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2013-0643 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.