Snow Leopard ships with flawed Flash

Security experts are warning Mac users upgrading to the new Snow Leopard operating system, that they could be exposed to threats they thought they had already patched against.

According to a new alert from security vendor Sophos issued this morning, the new version of Mac OS X downgrades users' version of Adobe Flash without asking permission - leaving their PCs exposed to a raft of potential attacks and exploits which the latest version of Flash was released to guard against.

Senior technology consultant at Sophos, Graham Cluley, urged Snow Leopard users to check that their version of Flash is the latest one - version 10.0.32.18 - and if not to upgrade immediately.

"This should be done as a matter of priority," argued Cluley in a blog posting.

"Mac users who have been diligent enough to keep their security up-to-date do not deserve to be silently downgraded. In many ways, Adobe is 'the new Microsoft' when it comes to security vulnerabilities, with hackers targeting its code looking for ways to infect users."