CVE-2014-0497 — Flash Player
CRITICALCVE-2014-0497 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) CWE-191 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. A fix is available — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Integer underflow in Adobe Flash Player before 11.7.700.261 and 11.8.x through 12.0.x before 12.0.0.44 on Windows and Mac OS X, and before 11.2.202.336 on Linux, allows remote attackers…
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-2014-0497.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2014-0497 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Integer underflow in Adobe Flash Player before 11.7.700.261 and 11.8.x through 12.0.x before 12.0.0.44 on Windows and Mac OS X, and before 11.2.202.336 on Linux, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via unspecified vectors.
Affected Products
flash playeradobechromegoogleopensuseopensuseenterprise linux desktopredhatenterprise linux eusredhatenterprise linux serverredhatResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Adobe Flash Player - Integer Underflow Remote Code Execution (Metasploit)
by Metasploit · May 6, 2014
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every adobe flash player deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Fix
Apply the adobe flash player security patch or hotfix for CVE-2014-0497 on the affected version, following the vendor advisory for your exact build.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands. 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-0:11.2.202.336-1.el5 | RHSA-2014:0137 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2014-0497 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.