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US Government agencies asked to stop using Adobe Flash

Ron Wyden wants all US Government sites to remove Adobe Flash content by next year. (Source: Fossbytes)
Ron Wyden wants all US Government sites to remove Adobe Flash content by next year. (Source: Fossbytes)
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has instructed Government agencies to come up with procedures to remove Adobe Flash from all US Government sites and PCs by August 1, 2019 citing Adobe's end of Flash support by end of 2020. This move is being done to avoid a Windows XP-like situation, which some Government agencies are apparently still using.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has asked a few Government agencies to come up with plans to remove Adobe Flash from US Government systems to avoid using software beyond the support lifetime. Most websites and mobile apps have stopped implementing Adobe Flash in favor of HTML5 and even modern browsers allow the user to disable Flash. The clunky and insecure nature of Flash means that the US Government apparently wants to seal a possible security loophole by removing Flash once and for all from all of its websites and computers. In fact, Adobe itself is ending support for Flash by 2020. 

The Government agencies contacted by Senator Wyden include the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). His action points for getting rid of Adobe Flash include —

  • The above agencies mandate no deployment of Flash-based content on any federal website, effective within 60 days.
  • Remove all Flash-based content from all federal websites by August 1, 2019.
  • Create a pilot program to remove Flash from few desktops by March 1, 2019 and from all federal computers by August 1, 2019.

Senator Wyden's call to proactively remove Flash from federal computers is a good thing as once Flash reaches EOL, any remaining security holes will be unpatched. Also, the Government would want to avoid a situation as with Windows XP wherein some agencies are still paying millions of dollars to Microsoft for extended support beyond 2014. 

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2018 07 > US Government agencies asked to stop using Adobe Flash
Vaidyanathan Subramaniam, 2018-07-29 (Update: 2018-07-29)