Adobe Changes Mind, Will Offer Security Fixes For Creative Suite 5 And 5.5

When Adobe announced recently that it would not offer critical security updates for its two-year-old Adobe Creative Suite 5 or the one-year-old v5.5 it faced immediate and unrelenting backlash from customers and for that reason Adobe has now announced plans to fix those security issues without needing to upgrade to Adobe Creative Suite 6.

Originally the company said users would need to update their Creative Suite version or simply be careful with image sources which given the options would likely mean a forced upgrade.

Now Adobe has posted an announcement on its official blog in which the organization has promised to offer security fixes. Interestingly enough the company has also removed all previous guidelines which pointed to no fixes and the need to upgrade to Creative Suite 6. In its blog post Adobe engineers write:

“We are in the process of resolving the vulnerabilities addressed in these security bulletins in Adobe Illustrator CS5.x, Adobe Photoshop CS5.x and Adobe Flash Professional CS5.x, and will update the respective security bulletins once the patches are available.”

In one case of malicious security failure the handling of maliciously constructed TIFF files could allow an attacker to potentially take control of a users computer after a stock overflow.

Seven other flaws were also mentioned by nCircle Security’s Andrew Storms in an interview with Computerworld on Friday, however those security issues have not been revealed to the general public for reasons of computer security.

An upgrade would have cost buyers $99 for Flash Professional and $249 for Adobe Illustrator. Buyers looking to upgrade to the full CS6 Design & Web Premium edition in the meantime would have been forced to shell out $375.