Oracle to issue huge security patch addressing 36 Java vulnerabilities | Hacker News Reader

Oracle to issue huge security patch addressing 36 Java vulnerabilities

theinquirer.net

40 pointsdsl36 comments

For context, Java will not run by default in any of the 3 major web browsers. In Firefox, it uses Click to Play, requiring you to click on the plugin to load it. In Chrome and IE, it will present a permissions box asking you for permission to run the applet that you can deny.

Does anyone know if this is the infamous 7u51 which will disable unsigned applets from running AT ALL in a browser? (Yes, I know about the whitelist jar)

It is, this one raises the security baseline. In case you need to make applets compatible with 7u51 take a look at https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/entry/new_secur...

So now all applets will have to be signed, and users will be trained to accept running the signed applets with that horrible GUI for confirming it. Did you know that popup about running a signed applet also confirms you're OK with running the applet outside the sandbox?

So from now on, all applets will by default run outside the sandbox? How is this an improvement?

It's an improvement because all applets will by default not run at all, and most users don't need to use any applets and thus will not in fact be trained to agree to run applets.

Basically, it acknowledges that the Java sandbox is as leaky as a sieve and that securitywide, running an applet not much different from downloading and running a regular executable file, so you should only do it if you trust the source.

It's a shame if poorly written applets end up being signed cluelessly.

At least the sandbox used to prevent accidents, if not malicious code. Plenty of things like "lights-out" server admin tools seem to ship with semi-dodgy applets for KVM stuff etc.

Let's say this update does everything advertised and more, the perception remains that Java is just not usable in the browser--it's just too dangerous.

Away from testing purposes, the only reason we use IE in the office is so that we can use Webex without Java.

So you rather use the ActiveX plugin instead?!

Talk about security.

Is ActiveX more dangerous than Java applets? If so, that's news to me, but I'm all ears.

I think bromium.com includes a hw-virtualization option that enables one to use java in the browser safely.

We really need to implement the missing functionality Java applets are providing in plain JS, so applets can die. The last time i absolutely had to implement an applet was to provide my client with this functionality that was not available with pure JS:

- direct access to printer: the user wanted to print on a specific tray of the printer, without selecting it every time. JS only implements window.print() with no fine grained printer control.

- serial/parallel/usb access: access to a POS for card processing, and we needed to write some data on a smartcard.

- plain TCP connections

- read/write files on the local filesystem.

I understand that all these features require more control of the underlying hardware and need to be somehow secured, but we did not want to write a desktop app just for these features, and applets gave us the means to implement what the user needed. Once JS can do that, applets can die a quick dead.

Why not an HTTP server running on localhost that provides these things?

Yes, we thought of that too, but the installation of the server on every client was a lot more work than writing an applet. But it was a valid alternative if the clients using the app where few.

Out of curiousity, why did it have to run in the browser?

Why not? - "we did not want to write a desktop app just for these features"

Fair enough.

I don't see JS getting those features though, especially FS/peripheral access. By completely leaving them out it makes sandboxing JS so much simpler.

What an utter mess Java is. You'd think after 20 years they'd have this sorted out by now.

You mean, what an utter mess the Java Applet Plugin is. And it is, but keep in mind that the Java team signed up for a world of hurt: they produced a design whose attack surface is an entire programming language, complete with networking and a user interface toolkit and all the timers, retention cycles, native code bindings, and other junk that comes with it.

Surely there are several bugs here that aren't specific to the Applet Plugin, but their impact is probably minimal outside of the plugin.

And then, finally, Java will be secure. Right?

No system/platform is 100% secure, and Java is no exception

It is all relative

Please note that the only way to exploit these vulnerabilities is you've already got your code executing on the machine you intend to break. The only thing this allows you to do is to break out of the java sandbox, and keep in mind that most languages don't even pretend that sandbox isolates code (e.g. python/perl/go/... all openly say you can easily break out of the sandbox). So they're trying to solve a really hard problem.

They are indeed trying to solve a hard problem, and they're shackled to a 1990s design.

But I'm not sure I understand the rest of your comment. The threat model for a Java plugin vulnerability is, if your target has the Java plugin enabled, they can't safely browse the web; any page they visit could end up redirecting them to a page with a malicious applet. That's pretty bad.

    Please note that the only way to exploit these vulnerabilities is you've already got your code executing on the machine you intend to break

I can't reconcile this with the article.

    ...34 that are bugs that can be exploited remotely by an attacker without requiring authentication

By "your code" do you mean "Java-based application"? Honest question.

I mean that these bugs only solve the "break out of the sandbox" issue. They do not get your code on to the machine to exploit.

In other words these flaws are the equivalent of "I can upload code, how do I get to shell access to the java account".

Java Applets.

So basically, if someone browses to a site with an applet and doesn't block Java.

I wouldn't call that a remote exploit.

Unlike the whole software security industry, which does.

I don't work in the software security industry like you but I don't see how it's a remote exploit. Wikipedia gives a way of discerning the two [1] that makes sense to me, as a software security industry layperson:

> Whether they need to be run on the same machine as the program that has the vulnerability (local) or can be run on one machine to attack a program running on another machine (remote).

So if a user starts running the code for you on their machine, it's local. If I send a malformed JPG to a Java webservice that process images, and it doesn't process the JPG correctly leading to code execution or a DoS then that's remote.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploit_(computer_security)

That's a 1990s definition of the term "remote", but 51% of Wikipedians now disagree with the whole software security industry, which uniformly considers browser drive-by vulnerabilities to be "remote".

I agree, it's a local exploit, not a remote exploit (I've debated this with people as well), but in the end Java sandbox bypass exploits are (or were) the most effective local exploit possible. And they're arguably far more valuable than the vast majority of remote exploits out there.

Silent, cross-browser, cross-platform; browser plugin installed by default with anyone who has Java. And that's a huge number of people, since a ton of corporate and residential users have Java installed on all sorts of devices. Java is responsible for a massive ramp up in infections of computer literate and illiterate users alike between 2010 and now.

An interesting aspect of the whole Java pluigin fiasco is that, as you write, there were very few exploits until a couple of years ago - but the plugin was widely deployed for over a decade before that, and there is no reason to believe that it was somehow more secure before. So why the recent increase?

I think it is a combination of third party bug bounty programs (ZDI, etc) which is causing vulnerabilities to be disclosed to the vendor and the blood in the water effect.

Could be a combination of many factors, but probably in part due to security researchers and black hats alike truly realizing the potential damage Java sandbox exploits could cause, in comparison to exploits for Flash or Adobe Reader, which are much more fickle, not cross platform, etc.

Considering the crappy quality of most java-powered "enterprise" software, I'd say this scenario is extremely likely.

This is a very disingenuous way of describing the risk of drive by exploits in the browser.

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