Whether it was imagining a computer in every home in the 1970s or talking about selling software online before the internet was a thing, Steve Jobs was way ahead of his time.
The latest example? That a whole eight years after Jobs’ penned his open letter about the perils of using Adobe Flash, the U.S. government is finally getting around to abandoning the plugin; concerned about Flash’s “inherent security vulnerabilities” as it reaches its final days.
A warning to government agencies
The issue was outlined by Senator Ron Wyden, the politician who has served as the senior United States Senator for Oregon since 1996 (coincidentally, the year that Adobe Flash made its public debut.) In a recent letter, Wyden urged various government agencies to abandon flash ahead of Adobe stopping updating the software in two years’ time.
“I write to request that your agencies collaborate to end government use of Adobe Flash in light of its inherent security vulnerabilities and impending ‘end-of-life’ in 2020,” Wyden wrote to officials at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security. “While Flash will continue to exist past this point, it will no longer receive necessary technical support, significantly magnifying its existing cybersecurity deficiencies.”
As the three agencies which provide the majority of cybersecurity guidance to government agencies, Wyden noted that NIST, NSA and DHS, “must take every opportunity to ensure that federal workers are protected from cyber-threats and that the government is not intentionally supporting risky online behavior.”
With the “critical deadline” of 2020 looming, Wyden continued that, “the government must act to prevent the security risk posed by Flash from reaching catastrophic levels.” He also recommended that the government doesn’t roll out any new, Flash-based content for its federal websites in the future. (You know, when it adds a new looping MIDI theme or animated GIF to its MySpace page!)
Adobe announced that it was winding down the use of Flash starting last year — with open standards like HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly now offering most of the same functionality, without the dangers of security vulnerabilities or battery drain.
Source: Washington Times
