With Office 2003, Microsoft changed default settings to no longer run macros automatically, making attacks much more difficult. Malware authors use the macro feature in Office to implant malicious code to documents they email as attachments. Today's browsers themselves are auto-updated, without the need for the user to intervene, so users always have the latest version. For example, with HTML5's capability to 'do it all', the need for third party browser plugins has mostly been eliminated. But that software, Sullivan says, will be harder and harder to find. Sullivan predicts that by spring of 2017, Flash will no longer bear fruit for exploit kit makers.Įxploits, which have become one of the most common vehicles for malware in the past decade, need out-of-date software in order to accomplish their goal of getting through security holes. But Sean Sullivan, security advisor in F-Secure Labs, predicts in the report that Google Chrome will kill Flash support in early 2017, and Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge will follow. Prominent on last year's malware scene were the Angler and Nuclear exploit kits, both of which, like the other top exploit kits, mostly took advantage of vulnerabilities in Flash to do their dirty work. The report, released today, details the trends and events in global cyber threats that hit consumers and companies last year. SAN JOSE, CA-(Marketwired - Mar 10, 2016) - Exploit kits face a disruptive future, according to F-Secure's new Threat Report for 2015.

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