Software Engineering Institute

The Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE) allows users to run Java applications in a browser or as standalone programs. Sun has made the JRE available for multiple operating systems.

Per Sunsolve Document ID 103079:

A vulnerability in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) with applet caching may allow an untrusted applet that is downloaded from a malicious website to make network connections to network services on machines other than the one that the applet was downloaded from. This may allow network resources (such as web pages) and vulnerabilities (that exist on these network services) which are not otherwise normally accessible to be accessed or exploited.

The following java products are affected by this vulnerability:

JDK and JRE 6 Update 2 and earlier
JDK and JRE 5.0 Update 12 and earlier
SDK and JRE 1.4.2_15 and earlier
SDK and JRE 1.3.1_20 and earlier

An attacker may be able to run a Java applet on a vulnerable system to gain access to network connections to resources not otherwise accessible and expose vulnerabilitites within those network resources.

Upgrade
Sun has released an upgrade to address this issue. See Sunsolve Document ID 103079 for more details. To adjust the JRE update settings, see the update section of the Java deployment guide.

Disable Java

Disabling the Java browser plugin may prevent a malicious webpage from exploiting this vulnerability. See the Securing Your Web Browser for instructions on how to disable Java in your browser.

Use NoScript
Using the Mozilla Firefox NoScript extension to whitelist web sites that can run scripts and access installed plugins will mitigate this vulnerability. See the NoScript FAQ for more information.