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CVE-2018-4878: Adobe Flash Player Use-After-Free Vulnerability

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: yes — in CISA KEV since 2021-11-03
• EPSS: 90.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2018-02-06 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-416

Description

A use-after-free vulnerability was discovered in Adobe Flash Player before 28.0.0.161. This vulnerability occurs due to a dangling pointer in the Primetime SDK related to media player handling of listener objects. A successful attack can lead to arbitrary code execution. This was exploited in the wild in January and February 2018.

Affected products

• Adobe Flash Player 24.0.0.186 and earlier.: before 28.0.0.161 — fixed in 28.0.0.161
• RedHat Enterprise Linux Desktop: 6.0
• RedHat Enterprise Linux Server: 6.0
• RedHat Enterprise Linux Workstation: 6.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Adobe Flash Player 24.0.0.186 and earlier. 28.0.0.161. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2018/02/group-123-goes-wild.html
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/102893
• http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1040318
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:0285
• https://blog.morphisec.com/flash-exploit-cve-2018-4878-spotted-in-the-wild-massive-malspam-campaign
• https://github.com/InQuest/malware-samples/tree/master/CVE-2018-4878-Adobe-Flash-DRM-UAF-0day
• https://github.com/vysec/CVE-2018-4878
• https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player/apsb18-03.html
• https://securingtomorrow.mcafee.com/mcafee-labs/hackers-bypassed-adobe-flash-protection-mechanism/
• https://threatpost.com/adobe-flash-player-zero-day-spotted-in-the-wild/129742/
• https://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/adobe-flash-vulnerability-reappears-in-malicious-word-files/d/d-id/1331139
• https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44412/

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