Adobe Flash is, in my opinion, the most ubiquitous spyware in the world and no products detect it as such. The reason it goes undetected is that it also has numerous legitimate uses, however, there is growing evidence that indicates significant abuse. This will be the first in a series of blogs in which I will try to help you understand the threats and help you get a handle on the beast that is Flash.

If you have Adobe Flash on your computer, and most of you do, you are probably being spied on and Adobe does their best not to let you know or do anything about it. Fundamentally, rich video content is only the drug Adobe wants you to get hooked on, but make no mistake, one of the main purposes of Flash is apparently to secretly compromise your privacy. Flash cookies allow online advertising networks to covertly and uniquely track your internet use. This is not only a PC problem, but affects Linux, Mac, and mobile devices that support Flash. Flash cookies provide advertising networks with much better tracking than normal cookies do. Because a Flash cookie can effectively identify you (or your computer) uniquely it becomes very easy for internet ad agencies to profile you specifically.

Perhaps the only thing that Flash threatens more than your privacy is your security. Flash has been riddled with exploitable vulnerabilities. I want to help you get better control of your security and privacy, so this first blog will focus on the basics of getting you up to date and teaching you some Flash configuration. Start by making sure that you have the most current version of Flash.The page will tell you the version of Flash you have installed and the current version for some operating systems, but not for Android phones. Remember, if you use multiple browsers you need to check Flash in each browser to make sure that it is current. Updating Flash in Firefox does not update Flash in Internet Explorer.

The next step is configuring the Flash player. In the next blog I’ll give an alternate means of configuring Flash, but let’s start with the “normal” way of configuring Flash. There should be a tool on your computer to configure Flash, but Adobe doesn’t work that smart.This happens to be a fairly unintuitive site designed to discourage users from configuring Flash, but I’ll help explain how it works. When you land on the web page and have Flash installed, you will see the following screen.

This actually is not simply text, this is the tool you need to use to configure Flash player. Note that this is not going to be enough to prevent Flash enabled websites from spying on you, but it is a start. Each of the links on the left under the words “Settings Manager” is an active link that controls Flash. I’ll explain a bit about each of the screens you see when you use the Flash Player Settings Manager tool. The first screen is the “Global Privacy Settings panel” which you see below.

Source:http://www.portable-digital-video-recorder.com/adobe-flash-the-spy-in-your-computer-%E2%80%93-part-1/