CONFERENCE NOW LIVE: Threat Detection & Incident Response (TDIR) Summit - Join the Event In-Progress
Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Cybercriminals Waste Little Time in Targeting Latest Java Flaws

Just five days after Oracle released the patches, criminals have added exploits for Java’s recent flaws to their kits.

Security firm F-Secure spotted the Java exploit in the wild, and noted that it began circulating online April 21.

Just five days after Oracle released the patches, criminals have added exploits for Java’s recent flaws to their kits.

Security firm F-Secure spotted the Java exploit in the wild, and noted that it began circulating online April 21.

Earlier this month, Oracle patched 42 vulnerabilities, 39 of them remotely exploitable. One of those vulnerabilities could enable an attacker to disable the Java security manager and run code outside of Java’s sandbox. After the patches were released, the person who discovered this flaw, Jeroen Frijters, published his findings. Those findings were then turned into a Metasploit module.

“Interestingly, the Metasploit module was published on the 20th, and as mentioned earlier, the exploit was seen in the wild the day after,” F-Secure’s research note explains. The exploit was discovered as part of the Crime Boss exploit kit.

In related news, the same week that the latest Java fixes were published, a Reflection API flaw was disclosed on the Full Disclosure mailing list. The vulnerability, which affects all versions of Java SE7, was found by Adam Gowdiak and the team at Security Explorations.

“What’s interesting is that the new issue is present not only in JRE Plugin / JDK software, but also the recently announced Server JRE as well,” Gowdiak wrote

Last month, Websense said that 94 percent of endpoints running Java are unpatched and vulnerable to at least one exploit. Many of those exploits are standard issue in all of the crime kits used by criminals these days. According to Websense, 75 percent of the Java versions detected are more than six months old; two-thirds were more than a year old, and half were two years old.

“Patch management can be a complicated process for an organization, especially those with remote workers,” said Charles Renert, vice president of Websense Security Labs.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

“There are a number of factors at play: a mobile workforce is hard to patch; Java has a cross-platform footprint; and Java updates independently from the vulnerable apps, such as browsers, that use it…” 

Related Insight: The Unique Challenges of Controlling Java Exploits

Written By

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join this event as we dive into threat hunting tools and frameworks, and explore value of threat intelligence data in the defender’s security stack.

Register

Learn how integrating BAS and Automated Penetration Testing empowers security teams to quickly identify and validate threats, enabling prompt response and remediation.

Register

People on the Move

Jeremy Koppen has left Mandiant after 13 years to become the CISO of Equifax.

Engineering and technology solutions provider Amentum has appointed Max Shier as its CISO.

PAM provider Keeper Security has appointed Shane Barney as its Chief Information Security Officer.

More People On The Move

Expert Insights

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest cybersecurity news, threats, and expert insights. Unsubscribe at any time.