Patching and Apple - Java issue

Published: 2009-05-22
Last Updated: 2009-05-22 23:15:30 UTC
by Mark Hofman (Version: 1)
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At the other end of the spectrum is Apple.  There is a java issue (CVE-2008-5353) which was reported to Sun and fixed by Sun back in December.   For some reason the fix for this was not included in the recent security updates all Mac users would have received recently.   Why not?

Actually thats what we asked, but the response was a tad disappointing and not at all enlightening.  In the mean time Mac users are vulnerable to a simple driveby exploit.  The POC code was posted on Milw0rm a couple of days ago.  You can read more on the issue here and here.  The page on the first link has a link which will execute the /usr/bin/say command using a java applet it demonstrates the issue nicely.

It won't be long before it is being used in live exploits.   Apple, please fix it, soon.   In the mean time people disable java.

Update

Brian Krebs wrote about this issue as well, you can read it here.  The main story doesn't really say anything new, but he has done some additional analysis and mapped the differences between Sun fixing a java issue and Apple releasing the update, which is interesting.  You can find that here.  

 

Mark H 

 

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