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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."
It would be very difficult to cull Java in an Enterprise environment that was build on it even if you wanted to. Convincing your Boss that you have to redevelop the entire system just to do it would also be a difficult task.
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.
Seriously? This person is licensing an exploit kit for $10,000 per month and nobody has bothered following the money to shut him down? I have a hard time believing anyone could make $10K/mo doing this anyway. Wouldn't the first order of business by the exploit buyers be to make it work without the payments? What's the author going to do? Sue them for non-payment?
You know the difference between a browser plugin and the JRE?
Do you really think that having eclipse or matlab installed on your computer (both contain a JRE) makes it magically vulnerable?
Why would you not develop systemns in it, or rewrite existing ones? Just stop using the ridiculous browser plug-in. It's the new ActiveX.
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 ;).
But... but... Javascript is used all over the Web. You'd break almost everything if you uninstalled Java!
I see. Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Is it definitely plugged in?
While we are at it let's get rid of Python and Ruby which are associated with web exploits in recent news (The Ruby SQL injection being the latest) . It would make more sense to say "Just remove java plugins".
Don't punish an entire language because of a bad implementation of a function that either uses the language or extends the language into where it really isn't needed anymore.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
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.
At this point does any tech savvy user don't know the difference between the Java Runtime Environment and the Java Browser Plugin? Just disable/remove the plugin.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
These are the idiots who make life so difficult for legit network guys. That summary reads like George Washington just raided another British outpost. Whether for curiosity or profit, remember who the bad guys are!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
> > If you play Minecraft you need Java installed.
> False. You don't need the Java browser plugin for Minecraft, only the JRE.
His statement is true. Having the JRE installed is having Java installed. It is correct that the browser plugin is unnecessary. But his original statement is entirely correct.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
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
Support: Have you tried pushing the 10 key?
Customer: The 10 key? Do you mean F10?
Support: No. The 10 key is a black rocker on the back of the computer with a 1 and a 0. Pushing that will make your computer secure.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I don't know why it isn't enabled by default, but Firefox has a click-to-play plugins option that should dramatically reduce the exposure to exploits like this. So NoScript isn't required.
about:config
plugins.click_to_play = true
So what do we have left after scorching the earth? nothing? they're all vulnerable and all need to maintained and patched. Java is not alone and not really any worse than any other technology.
Or instead we could get real and demand that browsers fix their plugin model and run plugins with almost no privileges, ya know, as Unix/Linux does for services. That way the inevitable security holes are not catastrophic as they are now, and we don't have to do "denial of service" on ourselves by removing useful tools and technologies.
I have been coding in Java for quite a long time and there are essentially two archetypes of very crappy coders:
1) The people who don't have what it takes to be a decent engineer (in any language) and are just creating horrible crap because that's the only thing they were taught in college.
2) The people who "Would rather be coding something else". Often (but not always) a bit older engineers who might not have had any education in Java and any understanding they do have (whether it's from formal education or from them having read half a book a decade ago) is horribly outdated and incomplete. They stubbornly insist that if some of the architectural structures that they learned decades ago for different type of applications and for different environments end up creating a bad Java application, Java is to blame.
The first archetype are useless but harmless: They write bad code but do so very slowly and don't dare to touch anything that looks intimidating which means they generally can't screw anything important up. The second archetype is who I immediately blame whenever I get a "WTF was someone thinking?" moment when looking at some major design decision.
For fun? Minecraft.
For work? Burp suite (there are other HTTP proxies, but none that do as well what I need them to do).
There's also things like Eclipse and NetBeans (developers are people too... even if they are Java developers), of course... Java begets Java, to a certain degree, and there's already so much Java out there that it's pretty much impossible to stop creating more of it anytime in the reasonable future.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Here in Norway we are required to have it to do online banking :(
I refuse to bank online, and I would ESPECIALLY refuse to bank online if the bank demanded java. If I want to check my balance I'll call them; I never heard of anyone getting rooted over a voice-only phone call.
In fact, I use my credit card as little as possible online. Yes, I'm paranoid... but my computers haven't been infected with anything since my daughter installed the XCP trojan Sony provided on a CD she bought at the store she worked at.
If I do get rooted, there's no sensitive information whatever on my PCs or phone.
Free Martian Whores!
All the Java problems were with applets. Considering how many security problems were with Flash too, maybe the problem is with the browser APIs.