Re: question on recent Java virus affecting JRE/applets

From:

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= <arne@vajhoej.dk>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:28:24 -0400

Message-ID:

<4f73c8ca$0$293$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>

On 3/28/2012 9:31 PM, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:

I have been reading more lately about a virus from some
Java applets.

This article below suggest to disable Java plugins in the browser,
which I just did just in case:

http://news.techeye.net/security/virus-installs-in-your-memory

http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Critical-Java-hole-being-exploited-on-a-large-scale-1485681.html

------------------------------
"However, not even those who use the most current version of Java can
feel entirely safe"
...
"To be on the safe side, users can completely uninstall Java
or at least disable the browser plug-in"
------------------------

The known problem is fixed in latest versions so upgrading closes
those security holes.

The rumor about another security hole with no fix is difficult to
comment on. It may be true or it may not be true. Most likely there
are one or more unknown vulnerabilities in Java. But there are most
likely also one or more unknown vulnerability in each of Flash,
IE, FireFox, Chrome, Windows, Linux and MacOS X.

My question: Does this virus problem also affects downloading
a java application as a jar file and running it on the PC
or you think it only affects JRE and applets that run
in a browser?

The problem is an applet problem - it is a problem related
to the applet sandbox.

If you download a jar and runs it then it has full access
(as defined by the account running it) by default - and that
it not even a bug.

Arne