Less than a week after warning users that hackers were exploiting an unpatched bug in its Reader PDF viewer, Adobe said 8 days ago that Flash, its other prominent program, was also under fire. Adobe said that the current version of Flash contains a critical flaw already being used in the wild by criminals to attack Windows PCs. “This vulnerability could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system,” the advisory read. All editions of Flash, including those for Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris and Google’s Android mobile operating system include the flaw.

The company said then it would patch Flash in two weeks. However just got word that they moved it up to today. Go to the download center at http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ to get the latest version.

Click here to find out what version of Flash you have installed. If it’s less than 10.1.85.3, you need to update it.

Noteworthy is the fact that Google Chrome browser users got the patch four days ago, one of the benefits of an April Google-Adobe deal. That’s one of the factors that has made Chrome my current official choice of web browser.