Google incorporate Flash sandbox to Chrome beta

Google have just released the security sandbox for Adobe's Flash to the beta channel of their Chrome browser. Chrome users already running the beta build will be automatically updated to the version which includes the sandboxed Flash code.

A ‘Sandbox' isolates processes on the computer, stalling or halting malware from being able to run amok on a machine. This is a very important issue for Flash, especially with high profile media personalities such as Steve Jobs saying that Flash is a security nightmare for an operating system. Not only that, but Flash is becoming a playground for hackers in 2010. Adobe has had to patch Flash five times this year to counter malicious vulnerabilities.

Chrome already has some code in place which it uses to protect against HTML and Javascript attacks and some of this was used for the Flash sandbox design. However, a lot of the code was created from the ground up in cooperation with Google. “The biggest challenge was getting the full functionally of Flash from within this new sandbox,” said Brad Arkin – Adobe's director of security and privacy.

For the time being, only the Windows version of Chrome gets the sandbox implementation, although Google have promised that it will be rolled out on both Linux and Mac OSx at a later date.

KitGuru says: Google are really stepping up their game with clever ideas such as this.

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