What You Need to Know About the Security Risks of Adobe Flash

By now you’ve likely heard that Adobe is ending its support of Flash on December 31, 2020. In fact, Adobe released the last ever Flash update today, December 10, 2020. With this update, Flash will no longer play content after January 12, 2021. 

You might be thinking “Perfect! I don’t publish anything with Adobe Flash anymore and Flash playback will be blocked on my computer, so I don’t need to do anything.” But just ending Flash usage isn’t enough. Adobe also recommended in today’s update that you uninstall Flash Player entirely. Here’s why . . .

We’ve shared a bit about the history of Adobe Flash, but, suffice to say, Flash’s multiple security vulnerabilities left it ripe for being overtaken by a new, more secure solution (in this case, HTML5).

Even when dormant, just having Adobe Flash on your computer leaves it open to being hijacked by malicious code embedded in websites. When these exploits run, they can automatically redirect your browser to sites that install further malware and compromise your machine. 

If you have Flash installed on your computer, you’ve probably seen a pop-up from Adobe offering to uninstall it. You might be a little nervous uninstalling something that’s camped out on your hard drive for so long. But it’s OK. Articulate 360 apps and Storyline 3 don’t use Flash, so any training you create isn’t affected by Adobe sunsetting Flash. 

However, if you’re using one of these legacy Articulate products: Storyline 1, Storyline 2, Studio ’09, or Studio ’13, click here for more information on how the end of Adobe Flash will affect you. Long story short, if you have content that was previously published in Flash and you want your learners to be able to keep using it past December 31, 2020, you’ll need to republish it as HTML5. 

Throughout 2020 we’ve been sharing helpful content and resources to help you prepare for the end of Adobe Flash. Catch-up on everything we’ve shared so far and keep tabs on the latest information on this topic by visiting and bookmarking our series, Preparing for the End of Adobe Flash. 

And please let us know what questions you have by leaving a comment below. We’re here to help!