I've held off posting about recent security updates for most programs that I use, under the assumption that anyone reading this blog has by now set up these same programs for automatic notification or updating, or just doesn't care.
However, this seems worth special notice. Brian Krebs has reported two important patches, neither of which triggered update notifications on my system: Flash and Java. Both of these run primarily as plugins in your browser, which means you really should update them as soon as possible.
Krebs's post has all the details and pertinent links, including how to show which version you have and where to get the update, for both applications.
One thing that he mentions that I'll reiterate: On Windows only, the Java update process doesn't remove old versions. Since this is a potential security hole, you should remove them yourself. Just use Add/Remove programs, as described by Krebs. On various PCs, I either removed all the old ones before installing the new version, or did it afterwards. Didn't seem to matter either way.
Updating both was simple, following his links. Total time: about 5 minutes per PC.
The Mac update for Flash was equally painless. Mac will issue its own update for Java, says Krebs. I just ran Software Update; nothing yet.
Sun's Java page for Linux did not specify that the upgrade applied to Ubuntu, so I'm going to wait a few days and see if the built-in Ubuntu Software Updates offer anything. The Flash update was painless.
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