On April 14th, the Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) issued an advisory for all Windows users to uninstall QuickTime from their computers due to Apple’s announcement that they will no longer be providing security updates for the Windows-specific version of the program. Without regular security updates, the program becomes susceptible to security breaches – leaving computers it’s still installed on vulnerable to malicious attacks and data loss.
There’s a Catch-22 to this situation, though: Windows QuickTime users who utilize the Adobe Creative Cloud software are being advised by Adobe to not uninstall the program. According to the Creative Cloud Team’s official blog on the Adobe site, uninstalling QuickTime can interfere with the performance and productivity of several of its application’s codes – such as AppleProRes. Adobe acknowledges that it is working diligently to remove this dependency, but for the time being all Creative Cloud customers are being advised to not remove the program until they can bypass this flaw.
If your business is dependent on Adobe’s Creative Cloud features that utilize QuickTime, we advise that you obtain some method of security for your network and systems while Adobe works to patch this issue. Because the error is now known on a global scale due to the posting on both CERT’s website and Adobe’s official blog, the threat level is critical. Anyone, anywhere can very easily take advantage of this fracture in the security wall – so, it’s important to have a safety net should such a breach happen.
Adobe stated that it would keep their customers updated on their progress on removing this dependency on QuickTime, but as of the publishing of this post no current updates were available.