Apple won't let users run Flash unless it is the latest version

Users of Apple's Safari browser will be blocked from using unpatched Adobe Flash software following a new security update.

The update, pushed by Apple on Thursday, came the same week that Adobe fixed two Flash Player vulnerabilities being exploited by attackers in the wild. It also followed closely with another Flash update, issued in early February, which plugged a hole predominantly being leveraged to infect users' machines when they visit malicious websites in Firefox or Safari from their Mac.

In response to frequent exploits being leveraged against the popular Adobe software, Apple has introduced a safeguard that gives Safari users no option but to keep Flash up to date.

“When attempting to view Flash content in Safari, you may see this alert: ‘Blocked Plug-in,'” said an Apple notice. From there, Safari users will be able to download the latest version of Flash.

Apple's security update for Flash impacts users of Mac OS X 10.6, OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion.