📄 Description (English)
Adobe Flash Player and AIR Use-After-Free Vulnerability — Use-after-free vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR allows attackers to execute code.
🤖 AI Executive Summary
CVE-2016-0984 is a critical use-after-free vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR that allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on affected systems. With a CVSS score of 9.0 and known exploits available in the wild, this vulnerability poses an extreme risk to any organization still running legacy Flash-based applications. Although Adobe Flash reached end-of-life in December 2020, many legacy systems in critical infrastructure environments may still have Flash installed, making this vulnerability particularly dangerous.
📄 Description (Arabic)
🤖 AI Intelligence Analysis Analyzed: Apr 5, 2026 00:40
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia Impact Assessment
This vulnerability poses significant risk to Saudi organizations that may still have legacy Flash-based systems, particularly in government agencies (NCA-regulated entities), banking sector (SAMA-regulated institutions with legacy internal applications), energy sector (ARAMCO and other oil/gas companies with legacy SCADA HMI interfaces), and healthcare systems. Saudi government portals and internal enterprise applications that were built during the Flash era may still be vulnerable. Telecom operators like STC may have legacy management interfaces affected. The availability of public exploits makes this an attractive target for threat actors targeting Saudi critical infrastructure.
🏢 Affected Saudi Sectors
Government
Banking
Energy
Healthcare
Telecom
Education
Defense
⚖️ Saudi Risk Score (AI)
7.5
/ 10.0
🔧 Remediation Steps (English)
Immediate Actions:
1. Conduct an enterprise-wide audit to identify all systems with Adobe Flash Player or Adobe AIR installed
2. Immediately uninstall Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR from all endpoints and servers — Flash reached end-of-life on December 31, 2020
3. If Flash cannot be removed due to legacy application dependencies, isolate those systems on a segmented network with no internet access
Patching Guidance:
4. Apply Adobe Security Bulletin APSB16-04 if systems must temporarily retain Flash
5. Upgrade browsers to versions that have Flash permanently disabled (all modern browsers block Flash by default)
Compensating Controls:
6. Deploy application whitelisting to prevent Flash-based content execution
7. Enable browser-level Flash blocking via Group Policy
8. Implement network-level blocking of SWF file downloads at proxy/firewall level
Detection Rules:
9. Monitor for SWF file downloads and Flash process execution (flash*.exe, FlashPlayerPlugin*.exe)
10. Deploy YARA rules for known CVE-2016-0984 exploit payloads
11. Alert on any Adobe Flash Player process spawning child processes (indicator of code execution)
🔧 خطوات المعالجة (العربية)
الإجراءات الفورية:
1. إجراء تدقيق شامل على مستوى المؤسسة لتحديد جميع الأنظمة التي تحتوي على Adobe Flash Player أو Adobe AIR
2. إزالة Adobe Flash Player و Adobe AIR فوراً من جميع الأجهزة والخوادم — انتهى دعم Flash في 31 ديسمبر 2020
3. إذا تعذرت إزالة Flash بسبب تبعيات التطبيقات القديمة، يجب عزل تلك الأنظمة في شبكة مجزأة بدون وصول للإنترنت
إرشادات التصحيح:
4. تطبيق نشرة أمان Adobe رقم APSB16-04 إذا كان يجب الاحتفاظ بـ Flash مؤقتاً
5. ترقية المتصفحات إلى إصدارات تعطل Flash بشكل دائم
الضوابط التعويضية:
6. نشر قوائم التطبيقات المسموح بها لمنع تنفيذ محتوى Flash
7. تفعيل حظر Flash على مستوى المتصفح عبر سياسات المجموعة
8. تنفيذ حظر تنزيل ملفات SWF على مستوى الشبكة عبر البروكسي/جدار الحماية
قواعد الكشف:
9. مراقبة تنزيلات ملفات SWF وتنفيذ عمليات Flash
10. نشر قواعد YARA للكشف عن حمولات الاستغلال المعروفة لـ CVE-2016-0984
11. التنبيه عند قيام عملية Adobe Flash Player بإنشاء عمليات فرعية
📋 Regulatory Compliance Mapping
🟢 NCA ECC 2024
2-3-1 (Asset Management)
2-5-1 (Vulnerability Management)
2-6-1 (Patch Management)
2-9-1 (End-of-Life Systems Management)
🔵 SAMA CSF
3.3.3 (Patch Management)
3.3.5 (Vulnerability Management)
3.3.7 (Secure Configuration)
3.4.1 (Malware Protection)
🟡 ISO 27001:2022
A.8.8 (Management of technical vulnerabilities)
A.8.19 (Installation of software on operational systems)
A.8.9 (Configuration management)
A.5.7 (Threat intelligence)
🟣 PCI DSS v4.0
6.3.3 (Patching critical vulnerabilities)
6.2 (System components protected from known vulnerabilities)
11.3 (Penetration testing)
🔗 References & Sources 0
No references.
📦 Affected Products / CPE 1 entries
Adobe:Flash Player and AIR