US Government agencies asked to stop using Adobe Flash

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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