Posts Tagged: Oracle

Latest Warnings / Other / The Coming Storm — 60 Comments
29
Aug 12

Researchers: Java Zero-Day Leveraged Two Flaws

New analysis of a zero-day Java exploit that surfaced last week indicates that it takes advantage of not one but two previously unknown vulnerabilities in the widely-used software. The latest figures suggest that these vulnerabilities have exposed more than a billion users to attack.

Esteban Guillardoy, a developer at the security firm Immunity Inc., said the underlying vulnerability has been around since July 28, 2011.

“There are 2 different zero-day vulnerabilities used in this exploit,” Guillardoy wrote in a lengthy analysis of the exploit. “The beauty of this bug class is that it provides 100% reliability and is multi-platform. Hence this will shortly become the penetration test Swiss knife for the next couple of years (as did its older brother CVE-2008-5353).”

ONE BILLION USERS AT RISK?

How many systems are vulnerable? Oracle Corp., which maintains Java, claims that more than 3 billion devices run Java. But how many of those systems run some version of Java 7 (all versions of Java 7 are vulnerable; this flaw does not exist in Java 6 versions).

To get an idea, I asked Secunia, whose Personal Software Inspector program runs on millions of PCs. Secunia said that out of a random sampling of 10,000 PSI users, 34.2 percent had some version of Java 7 installed. In the same data set, 56.4 percent of users had an update of Java 6 installed. Assuming that Secunia’s 10,000 user sample is representative of the larger population of computer users, more than a billion devices could be vulnerable to attack via this exploit.

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Time to Patch — 29 Comments
13
Jun 12

Apple, Oracle Ship Java Security Updates

There must have been some rare planetary alignment yesterday, because the oddest thing happened: Apple and Oracle both shipped software updates for the same Java security flaws on the very same day.

I’ve taken Apple to task several times for its unacceptable delays in patching Java vulnerabilities. Oracle is the official producer of Java, but Apple maintains its own version, and it has consistently lagged months behind Oracle in fixing security bugs. This failure on Apple’s part finally caught up with Mac OS X users earlier this year and turned into a major embarrassment for Apple, when the Flashback malware infected more than 650,000 Mac systems using a vulnerability that Oracle (but not Apple) had patched roughly two months earlier.

Well, it seems that Apple learned a thing or two from that incident. The update Oracle released yesterday, Java 6 Update 33 and Java 7 Update 5, fixes at least 14 security flaws in the oft-attacked software that is installed on more than three billion devices worldwide. Apple’s Java update brings Java on the Mac to 1.6.0_33, and patches 11 of the 14 security vulnerabilities that Oracle fixed in Tuesday’s release. It’s unclear whether those other three flaws simply don’t exist in the Mac version of Java, but we’ll take progress where we can get it.

Regardless of which operating system you use, if you have Java installed, I would advise you to update it, neuter it or remove it as soon as possible. The reason I say this is that Java requires constant patching, and it appears to be the favorite target of attackers these days. Continue reading →

Latest Warnings / Time to Patch — 15 Comments
27
Apr 12

Correction to Java Update Story

An earlier version of this blog post incorrectly stated that Oracle had shipped security updates for its Java software. Oracle did push out an update for Java earlier this month — Java 6 Update 32 — but the new version was a maintenance update that did not include security fixes. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused.

Latest Warnings / Security Tools / Time to Patch — 58 Comments
4
Apr 12

Urgent Fix for Zero-Day Mac Java Flaw

Apple on Monday released a critical update to its version of Java for Mac OS X that plugs at least a dozen security holes in the program. More importantly, the patch mends a flaw that attackers have recently pounced on to broadly deploy malicious software, both on Windows and Mac systems.

Distribution of 550,000 Flashback-infected Macs. Source: Dr.Web.com

The update, Java for OS X Lion 2012-001 and Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 7, sews up an extremely serious security vulnerability (CVE-2012-0507) that miscreants recently rolled into automated exploit kits designed to deploy malware to Windows users. But in the past few days, information has surfaced to suggest that the same flaw has been used with great success by the Flashback Trojan to infect large numbers of Mac computers with malware.

The revelations come from Russian security firm Dr.Web, which reports that the Flashback Trojan has successfully infected more than 550,000 Macs, most which it said were U.S. based systems (hat tip to Adrian Sanabria). Dr.Web’s post is available in its Google translated version here.

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A Little Sunshine / Latest Warnings / Time to Patch — 51 Comments
27
Mar 12

New Java Attack Rolled into Exploit Packs

If your computer is running Java and you have not updated to the latest version, you may be asking for trouble: A powerful exploit that takes advantage of a newly-disclosed security hole in Java has been rolled into automated exploit kits and is rapidly increasing the success rates of these tools in attacking vulnerable Internet users.

The exploit targets a bug in Java (CVE-20120-0507) that effectively allows the bypassing of Java’s sandbox, a mechanism built into the ubiquitous software that is designed partly to blunt attacks from malicious code. Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center warned last week that new malware samples were surfacing which proved highly effective at exploiting the flaw. Microsoft says the samples it saw loaded the ZeuS Trojan, but thieves can use such attacks to install malware of their choosing.

According to posts on several underground carding forums, the exploit has now been automatically rolled out to miscreants armed with BlackHole, by far the most widely used exploit pack. An exploit pack is a software toolkit that gets injected into hacked or malicious sites, allowing the attacker to foist a kitchen sink full of browser exploits on visitors. Those visiting such sites with outdated browser plugins may have malware silently installed, and Java is almost universally the most successful method of compromise across all exploit kits.

According to software giant Oracle, Java is deployed across more than 3 billion systems worldwide. But the truth is that many people who have this powerful program installed simply do not need it, or only need it for very specific uses. I’ve repeatedly encouraged readers to uninstall this program, not only because of the constant updating it requires, but also because there seem to be a never-ending supply of new exploits available for recently-patched or undocumented vulnerabilities in the program.

Case in point: On at least two Underweb forums where I regularly lurk, there are discussions among several core members about the sale and availability of an exploit for an as-yet unpatched critical flaw in Java. I have not seen firsthand evidence that proves this 0day exploit exists, but it appears that money is changing hands for said code. Continue reading →

Time to Patch — 29 Comments
20
Oct 11

Critical Java Update Fixes 20 Flaws

Oracle Corp. released a critical update to plug at least 20 security holes in versions of its ubiquitous Java software. Nearly all of the Java vulnerabilities can be exploited remotely to compromise vulnerable systems with little or no help from users.

If you use Java, take some time to update the program now. According to a report released this month by Microsoft, the most commonly observed exploits in the first half of 2011 were those targeting Java flaws. The report also notes that Java exploits were responsible for between one-third and one-half of all exploits observed in each of the four most recent quarters.

Methods for exploiting one of the flaws fixed by this update were detailed at a recent security conference in Buenos Aires, where researchers demonstrated a method for intercepting encrypted SSL and TLS traffic.

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Time to Patch — 20 Comments
12
Oct 10

Java Update Clobbers 29 Security Flaws

Oracle today released a critical update to its widely-installed Java software, fixing at least 29 security vulnerabilities in the program.

Most consumers on Microsoft Windows PCs will have some version of Java installed (if you’re not sure whether you have Java or what version might be installed, click this link). Existing users can grab the latest version — Java 6 Update 22 — by visiting the Windows Control Panel, clicking on the Java icon, and then selecting the “Update Now” button on the “Update” tab. If you don’t already have this software, I recommend that you keep it that way.

Per Oracle’s advisory, updates are available for Windows, Solaris and Linux versions of Java. Apple maintains its own version of Java for OS X systems, and typically issues fixes for its version several months after the official Java release.

Be aware that Java’s updater may by default also include free “extras” that you may not want, such as the Yahoo! Toolbar or whatever other moneymaker they decide to bundle with their software this time around, so be sure to de-select that check box during installation if you don’t want the add-ons.

Other — 42 Comments
5
Aug 10

Crimepack: Packed with Hard Lessons

Exploit packs — slick, prepackaged bundles of commercial software that attackers can use to booby-trap hacked Web sites with malicious software — are popular in part because they turn hacking for profit into a point-and-click exercise that even the dullest can master. I’ve focused so much on these kits because they also make it easy to visually communicate key Internet security concepts that otherwise often fall on deaf ears, such as the importance of keeping your software applications up-to-date with the latest security patches.

One of the best-selling exploit packs on the market today is called Crimepack, and it’s a kit that I have mentioned at least twice in previous blog posts. This time, I’ll take a closer look at the “exploit stats” sections of a few working Crimepack installations to get a better sense of which software vulnerabilities are most productive for Crimepack customers.

Check out the following screen shot, taken in mid-June from the administration page of a working Crimepack exploit kit that targeted mostly German-language Web sites. This page shows that almost 1,800 of the nearly 6,000 people who browsed one of the stable of malicious sites maintained by this criminal got hacked. That means some software component that 30 percent of these visitors were running either in their Web browsers or in the underlying Windows operating system was vulnerable to known software flaws that this kit could exploit in order to install malicious software.

Peering closer at the exploit stats, we see that one exploit was particularly successful: Webstart. This refers to a Java vulnerability that Oracle/Sun patched in April 2010, a powerful and widely-deployed software package that many users aren’t even aware they have on their systems, let alone know they need to keep it updated. (By the way, I got some serious flack for recommending that users who have no need for Java uninstall the program completely, but I stand by that advice.) As seen from the chart, this single Java flaw was responsible for nearly 60 percent of the successful attacks on visitors to these hacked sites.

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Other — 13 Comments
20
May 10

Apple Ships Java Security Update

Apple has pushed out an update that fixes at least 30 security vulnerabilities in its version of Java for Mac OS X systems.

The patch appears to fix a flaw in Java that Oracle shipped more than a month ago that attackers were using to install malicious software on Microsoft Windows systems.

Updates are available for Mac OS X v10.5.8 and Mac OS X v10.6.3 or later, via Apple Downloads or Software Update. The new release brings Java on the Mac to the current version, Java 6 Update 20.

Time to Patch — 19 Comments
20
Apr 10

Mozilla Disables Insecure Java Plugin in Firefox

Mozilla is disabling older versions of the Java Deployment Toolkit plugin for Firefox users, in a bid to block attacks against a newly-discovered Java security hole that attackers have been exploiting of late to install malicious code.

On April 15, Oracle Corp. pushed out an update to its Java software to fix a dangerous security flaw in the program. The patch came just a day after it became clear that criminals were using the flaw to break into vulnerable systems.

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