A rash of recent and ongoing targeted attacks involving compromises at high-profile Web sites should serve as a sobering reminder of the need to be vigilant about applying browser updates. Hackers have hit a number of prominent foreign policy and human rights group Web sites, configuring them to serve spyware by exploiting newly patched flaws in widely used software from Adobe and Oracle.
Apple on Monday released a critical update to its version of Java for Mac OS X systems that plugs at least a dozen security holes in the program. More importantly, the patch includes fixes for a flaw that attackers have recently pounced on to broadly deploy malicious software, both on Windows and Mac systems.
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.
