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Java Zero-Day Vulnerability Rolled Into Exploit Packs

tsu doh nimh writes "The miscreants who maintain Blackhole and Nuclear Pack — competing crimeware products that are made to be stitched into hacked sites and use browser flaws to foist malware — say they've added a brand new exploit that attacks a previously unknown and currently unpatched security hole in Java. The curator of Blackhole, a miscreant who uses the nickname 'Paunch,' announced yesterday on several Underweb forums that the Java zero-day was a 'New Year's Gift,' to customers who use his exploit kit. The exploit has since been verified to work on all Java 7 versions by AlienVault Labs. The news comes days after it was revealed that Paunch was reserving his best exploits for a more closely-held exploit pack called Cool Exploit Kit, a license for which costs $10,000 per month."

4 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Oh Java... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Informative

    At this point does any tech savvy user still have the Java Runtime Environment installed?

    Sure, but I have No Script installed to keep it from running except when I need it to.

    Sadly, I find myself needing Java for a lot of work related stuff. I even have a couple of machines that still have Flash on them because it's occasionally called for.

    In the real world, you can't always get away from using it since there's always some company required thing you need to access -- but that doesn't mean I'm prepared to let it run by default on just any web site.

    Hell, a lot of the tools I need to run daily for work are in Java.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  2. Re:Oh Java... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you use IE you can disable Java for all sites except the "enterprise ones". Even on IE6 - assuming an Enterprise environment typical of the sort you are talking about ;).

  3. Re:Just remove Java and get it over with by DigiShaman · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ya, and when the next JRE update prompts the user to install from the system tray, the browser plugin gets re-enabled (re-installed really).

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
  4. Re:Oh Java... by robmv · · Score: 5, Informative

    and the latest Java 7 update added features to disable Java applets and JNLP from browsers, that way if you need Java for an application like Eclipse, but don't need Java on the browser, you can secure yourself