Vulnerability Note VU#336105

Sun Java JRE vulnerable to unauthorized network access

Overview

The Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE) contains a vulnerability that may allow unintended access to network resources.

I. Description

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

II. Impact

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.

III. Solution

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.

Systems Affected

Vendor	Status	Date Updated
Sun Microsystems, Inc.	Vulnerable	5-Oct-2007

References

http://www.cert.org/archive/html/securing_browser.html
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-26-103079-1
http://secunia.com/advisories/27009/
http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2007kl/?page_id=148
http://noscript.net/faq

Credit

This vulnerability was reported in Sun Alert 103079. Sun credits Billy Rios of VeriSign with providing information about this issue.

This document was written by Joseph Pruszynski.

Other Information

Date Public	10/04/2007
Date First Published	10/05/2007 04:37:21 PM
Date Last Updated	10/12/2007
CERT Advisory
CVE Name
Metric	11.47
Document Revision	12