Critical Java flaw affects nearly one billion users

Researchers from Polish firm Security Explorations keep digging into Java and discovering flaws, the latest of which has been unearthed just before Oracle’s annual JavaOne conference.

The vulnerability is deemed critical by the researchers, as it could allow attackers to bypass the security sandbox in Java SE (Standard Edition) 5, 6 and 7, which can currently be found on nearly a billion of machines around the world.

Adam Gowdiak, CEO of Security Explorations, shared that the exploitation of the vulnerability involves a violation of a fundamental security constraint of Java Virtual Machines, and that all the aforementioned Java SE version with the latest updates and running on up-to-date Windows 7 have been found to be vulnerable.

Oracle has, of course, been informed about the vulnerability and has received the PoC exploit code developed by the company. It only remains to be seen whether they will succeed in developing a patch for the scheduled October 16 Java Critical Patch Update.