Serious New Java Flaw Affects All Browsers

Trailrunner7 writes "There is a serious vulnerability in Java that makes all current browsers vulnerable to simple Web-based attacks that could lead to a complete compromise of the affected system. Two separate researchers released information on the vulnerability on Friday, saying that it has been present in Java for years. The problem lies in the Java Web Start framework, a technology that Sun Microsystems developed to enable the simplified deployment of Java applications. In essence, the JavaWS technology fails to validate parameters passed to it from the command line, and attackers can control those parameters using specific HTML tags on a Web page, researcher Ruben Santamarta said in an advisory posted Friday morning."

Comments

All browsers?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Oh come, on. Shall I try it in Links? I've told you a million times that you're not supposed to overuse hyperboles.

Re:All browsers?

[treeves]

Stick it in your latus rectum.

Guess it's time to uncheck that box

[Ma8thew]

Can't recall the last time I even used a Java applet. Just uncheck the box in preferences and forget about it.

Re:Guess it's time to uncheck that box

[AchilleTalon]

Well, I am mainly writing Web client applications in Java to gain unauthorized access to your desktop.

People have Java enabled in their browser?

[WindSword]

Wow! I never knew.

Article Contents

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

Yes, the summary's misleading; but the article at least is a bit clearer: it refers to windows-based browsers.

"In his advisory, Ormandy said that he notified Sun about the vulnerability but that the vendor didn't believe it was serious enough to warrant an emergency patch," sayeth the article.

Now that it's on slashdot, of course, that is clearly no longer the case, if indeed it was.

Re:Article Contents

[binarylarry]

Actually it affected Linux browsers too.

However, it was fixed a few updates ago: http://java.sun.com/javase/6/webnotes/6u17.html

Re:Article Contents

[hairyfeet]

Why does everyone have to bring up this completely stupid and pointless "fact"? Here is a little "fact" of my own: The user only CARES about THEIR STUFF! Okay? Who gives a rat's fart if the system is fine if all your stuff is completely hosed? NOBODY, that's who!

So can we please let this little fact DIAF already? Because frankly it doesn't matter if the malware is running with user or admin rights because in the end it HAS YOUR STUFF which is all anybody gives a shit about. I have never in my nearly 15 years of PC repair had anybody go "but is the system okay?". All anybody has ever ever cared about, even when I tell them I'm gonna have to nuke it, is "can you give me back my stuff please?". So let us just let this little "malware at root VS user" crud die already. If you have malware running at either level it has access to your stuff, which depending on how religiously you back up (which guess what? 99.995% of users in my experience don't have recent backups, if they have backups at all) can be a PITA at best and a true tragedy if you use irreplaceable memories.

So in conclusion: If the malware can run, whether on Linux or Windows, it can get to your stuff, which is WAY more important than whether or not your system gets hosed. After all any geek here at /. can get a system fully running and tweaked nicely in a couple of hours, how long would it take to replace that only copy of your vacation photos, or that only copy of your late grandmother's last Xmas here on earth?

Re:Article Contents

[jabberw0k]

If you are going to make a cogent argument, you should omit the profanity; by resorting to vulgarities you torpedo yourself. What a shame, you probably had a valid point.

Re:Article Contents

[Confusador]

Why does everyone have to bring up this completely stupid and pointless "fact"? Here is a little "fact" of my own: The user only CARES about THEIR STUFF! Okay? Who gives a rat's fart if the system is fine if all your stuff is completely hosed? NOBODY, that's who!

Spoken like someone who hasn't had to administer antivirus in a while. The antivirus cares if the bot can affect it, and it's awfully difficult to install a rootkit without root access. So restricting it to user level access means that you're likely to catch it before it wipes out your stuff. And that's all I care about.

Re:Howcum?

[binarylarry]

Because it's not an exploit in Java, it's an exploit in the way parameter are provided to Java, when it is launched by the web start native executable.

Re:New?

[binarylarry]

Compared to what? Java has a pretty fantastic security track record.

Also this isn't an exploit in the Java runtime, it's an exploit in the way the web start native launcher parses arguments before using them to launch the Java virtual machine.

Re:New?

[Yvan256]

Compared to
[_] Enable Java

Re:For years?!

[postbigbang]

You didn't notice we've been watching you?

java -start -mykeylogger_to_ru -get_passwords_for_everything & -send_to_nsa_listening_post

wasn't that link you clicked?

Re:New?

[binarylarry]

It gets even safer with:

[_] Enable teh interwebs

oh oh! and this one:

[_] Enable computer power

The ultimately in security, I've done it!

Re:New?

[shutdown -p now]

Offtopic, but you really should remove or replace that link in your sig if you want to be taken seriously on any topic related to Java (or .NET). It's so out of date it's not even funny - a lot of points are at best misleading, at at worst blatantly wrong - and you've been called out on that on /. several times already.

Actually, come to think of it, quite a few bullet points there were lies in 2004, as well, which makes me wonder if you're just ignorant, or deliberately spreading FUD.

Some precisions....

[ls671]

Using Java Web Start is comparable to clicking "Yes" when prompted to install "spyware.exe" or any other exe file. Java Web Start is a framework to deploy native Java applications on your machine more easily. Of course, you must trust the source just as you must trust the source when you install an exe file or Unix executable file.

Java Web Start is in no way comparable to Flash, Java Applets or the like that start executing in your browser without your permission and where a sandbox is used to run the code.

I thought this should be made clearer... ;-))

And yet it ISN'T fixed

[Wee]

The article says that version 1.6.0_19 is affected.

So no, not old news. Not "long since" fixed.

-B

Re:And yet it ISN'T fixed

[fluffy99]

I tried to run their simple exploit demo, but it failed to load.

I just tested 1.6.0_18 and 1.6.0_19. Under IE8, both popped up an error that it couldn't download the exploit file. Firefox loaded Java, but nothing happened and no error was posted. So I would say, yes they are still vulnerable. It's just that the demo exploit file was not reachable.

Java has had a built-in backdoor

[Animats]

This isn't a bug. This is a backdoor inserted by someone at Sun.

The article says there is an "undocumented parameter" which allows specifying, on the command line, which run-time system to load. That allows loading arbitrary executable code. It's a built-in backdoor.

Re:Java has had a built-in backdoor

[petermgreen]

Personally I doubt this was deliberate.

The ability to load a different version of the jvm dll sounds like a debugging feature and normally someone running java from the command line would have the ability to run anything else anyway so it wouldn't really seem like a security flaw.

Processing untrusted stuff to allow it to be passed to an interface designed to take trusted stuff is known to be something that is easy to fuck up. Just look at all the sql injection attacks over the years.