Tip - Block Flash and other dangerous plugins with Click to Play: A how-to guide to improve your security

For years, computer security experts have bemoaned the poor security of popular browser plugins like Adobe Flash. Whether you realize it or not, your web browser uses these plug-ins all the time to play video on countless popular sites on the Internet - yet cybercriminals regularly exploit security holes in these same plugins to phish and defraud millions of ordinary computer users. The risk is even greater for journalists: the recent Hacking Team leak shows that Flash exploits were an important component of their hacking tools, which have been used by authoritarian governments around the world that are known to target reporters, activists, and dissidents. The leak includes several previously unknown ("0-day") Flash exploits, which are already being incorporated into widely used exploit kits so anybody will be able to use them, not just Hacking Team and their customers. As of this writing, two of the Hacking Team Flash exploits remain unpatched - and there may be more yet to come as researchers continue to explore the dataset.