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Added by Mike Danseglio December 10, 2014

Adobe Flash gets used for a ton of web-based media applications, from game streaming to web conferences to online training courses. Here at Interface we use a Flash-based application called Adobe Connect for our remote student connections. Even though HTML5 and other emerging and growing technologies are quite popular, Adobe Flash does seem to be here for the long-haul.

With all these apps using Flash, Adobe needed to give the user and IT administrator some control over security and privacy. But few users know where these settings are located and how to modify them. This blog shows you where the most commonly-changed settings, the camera and microphone settings, are located and how to change them.

Finding the Adobe Flash Player Settings Manager

All of the relevant Flash settings are stored in the Adobe Flash Player Settings Manager. To get there, first fire up Control Panel as shown in Figure 1. Note that I’m using Windows 7 for these screenshots, but the same process (with minor visual changes) applies to Windows Vista, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2012.

Figure 1. Control Panel.

Next, click on the Flash Player icon that I’ve pointed out. You’ll see the Flash Player Settings Manager. Click on the Camera and Mic tab as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. The Camera and Mic settings tab.

If the Block all sites radio button is selected, well, that has a pretty obvious effect. Adobe Flash cannot use any local camera or microphone on the system. The default is Ask me when a site wants to use the camera or microphone, which should prompt the user for permission. Clicking on the highlighted Camera and Microphone Settings by Site button allows you to view and configure the trusted sites as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. The sites that are specifically denied, allowed, or configured to prompt for camera and microphone access.

To ensure that a site can use the camera and microphone through Adobe Flash, click the Add button. That will let you add camera and microphone settings by site as shown in Figure 4. In this example I’m explicitly allowing remotelive.interfacett.com to use the camera and microphone.

Figure 4. Add Camera and Microphone Setting by Site.

That’s all it takes to ensure that a site can use the camera and microphone with Adobe Flash!

Special Note on Group Policy

In most environments the procedure I’ve documented works as described. However, in some scenarios the options may not be user-configurable. That’s most common in corporate environments where IT security policy is in place to explicitly disable these resources. This is typically deployed with Group Policy on domain-joined computers, but really any policy or configuration management software can disable Adobe Flash settings. In those cases, you’ll need to contact the IT department. If you are the IT department, you’ll need to determine which policy is making the configuration change and modify it to suit your needs.

Enjoy,

Mike Danseglio -CISSP / CEH
Interface Technical Training – Technical Director and Instructor