Flash Version Distributed in China After EOL is Installing Adware (zdnet.com) 26
Although the Flash Player app formally reached its end of life on December 31, 2020, Adobe has allowed a local Chinese company to continue distributing Flash inside China, where the application still remains a large part of the local IT ecosystem and is broadly used across both the public and private sectors. From a report: Currently, this Chinese version of the old Flash Player app is available only via flash.cn, a website managed by a company named Zhong Cheng Network, the only entity authorized by Adobe to distribute Flash inside China. But in a report published earlier this month, security firm Minerva Labs said its security products picked up multiple security alerts linked to this Chinese Flash Player version. During subsequent analysis, researchers found that the app was indeed installing a valid version of Flash but also downloading and running additional payloads. More precisely, the app was downloading and running nt.dll, a file that was loaded inside the FlashHelperService.exe process and which proceed to open a new browser window at regular intervals, showing various ad- and popup-heavy sites.
So Nothing New. (Score:5, Funny)
Flash is working as expected. Nice.
Re: So Nothing New. (Score:2)
Actually no, even if you told the typical Chinese person what was going on, chances are they wouldn't even care. China has such low standards when it comes to software that AV-comparatives literally uses a separate standard for them when it comes to malware detection accuracy.
Re: So Nothing New. (Score:2)
For what? This seems right up there with the comment about the 2008 earthquake being karma... Sharon Stone was it?
Zhong Cheng Network (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair... (Score:4, Funny)
Willing to bet the ad-ridden sites themselves have a dependency to flash...
It may objectively serve as an install verification. :)
Did the folk at Minerva Labs read the EULA? (Score:2)
Zhongcheng Networks does many things, one of those is games. Many of those games are Flash games.
Zhongcheng Networks has not only distribute the Flash plug-in, but also MANTAIN IT.
From the mouth of Adobe Themselves:
"Zhongcheng, an Internet company, is the official distribution partner for Adobe Flash Player in mainland China only. Adobe will support Zhongcheng’s exclusive distribution and maintenance of Flash Player within mainland China beyond 2020 for regional developers, enterprises, and end user
Re: Did the folk at Minerva Labs read the EULA? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ads and adware is super ingrained in the Chinese market. Before even EOL for flash, this behavior was already there. I work at an education Center that uses flash still and frankly as a developer, looking at the quality of this ecosystem makes me a bit sick. It's legacy at this point? t and the business will ride it out until an HTML5 product cones along with more implemented features. It would be a great place in my mind to explore AI assisted language learning.
However, look at 360 browserand you basically have a browser that includes adware and nagware. It's a huge resource hog and yet all Chinese IT seem to swear by it, pre installing it till kingdom come. Baidu and Sogou both have tools that also are in this category. Most Chinese users are phone users and ads there are brief but in the computer space popups are pervasive. I have been teaching a class an ad with a section showing male anatomy has popped up. It's truly a bizarre case were I suspect party leaders have a vested interest and Chinese consumers just don't know any better.
Cassablanca (Score:4, Funny)
One can only hope (Score:2)
Flash, the new WinXP (Score:3)
reached its end of life on December 31, 2020 Who wants to bet Flash will still be around, somewhere, by the end of 2030?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Funny... the people who want Flash can't have it, and the people who don't want it are forced to use it.
Thriller-Spy-Movie premise (Score:2)
This really sounds like a Tom Clancy or James Bond movie premise where the threat is to destroy a country's economy from within.
Except that a northern Chinese railroad did shutdown for a while - because it's operations were run off of Flash based software, and an automatic software update removed Flash from the systems.
You do know that natural gas regulation in Texas is a function of the Texas railroad authority.
Illuminati!
Now what would be really funny (Score:2)
... also downloading and running additional payloads.
What would be icing on the cake would be if the servers the flash installer was downloading the extra stuff from were in China, though North Korea would be worth some giggles too.
'' both the public and private sectors.'' (Score:3)
In China, aren't they the same? Isn't it law that the party has a seat in all ''private'' business?
Who is EOL (Score:2)
and why/how is it distributing adware? And how is it related to Flash being distributed in China?
Re: (Score:3)
Why only China (Score:1)