Is your website built on Adobe's aging Flash Player?
If your company website is based on Flash, be aware that you are officially on your own. Flash reached its EOL (End of Life) as of this past January 1st.
From a business perspective, you don't have to worry that your Flash-dependent website will suddenly stop working, but from here on, you won't be getting any additional security updates.
Security flaws are the issue
Unfortunately, Adobe's Flash player is riddled with security flaws. Over the years, the company has tried gamely to patch and better secure the software but it has proved to be an impossible challenge. For every major security flaw, they identify and close, at least one new one appears to take its place.
While that certainly factored into Adobe's decision to kill the Flash player, the simple truth is that the web has outgrown the technology. Back in the earliest days of the internet, Flash was well ahead of its time. It was truly groundbreaking technology that enabled webmasters to create deep, immersive experiences that simply weren't possible using other technologies of the day.
Now though, Flash has serious competition and in fact, the other options like HTML5 have handily surpassed Flash by most measures. That makes HTML5 hard to argue against. Not only is it more capable and optimized for the modern-day web, but it's also more secure, which makes it safer to deploy on your company's network.
My perspective
The bottom line is that if you're still using Flash, it's well past time to devote resources to a redesign that will see you migrating away from it. While your site will still function, every day you leave Flash active on your network, you're putting your company at increasing risk. It's just a matter of time before a hacker stumbles across the glaring weakness on your network and takes advantage of it. You definitely don't want that.
You could find a hacker saying: "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse"
By Denis Wilson
Thanks for reading this short post. For more tips on thriving with small business technology, check out the other blog posts at DWPIA Blogs. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
I am also a published author and speaker on cloud computing, work@home, and cybersecurity. I work extensively with business and professional associations to provide small business technology education programs.
Contact me if you would like me to speak to your association
