Microsoft Witnesses Java Attack Codes In Unprecedented Bulk

Microsoft, on October 18, 2010, declared that a never like before surge of web assaults was abusing security flaws within Java software of Oracle. Stated the company that there had been a spike in flaws within Java between January 2010 and September 2010 and that the number jumped from nearly half million during Q1 2010 to over 6 million during Q3 2010.

Said Senior Program Manager Holly Stewart at Microsoft malware Protection Center (MMPC), a few of their exploit 'malware' groups posed a real danger. In a most minimum way, the exploitation's rise was astonishing, the Manager added. ComputerWorld.com published Stewart's statement on October 18, 2010.

More specifically, Stewart outlined that the immense volume of malware assaults during Q3 2010 took advantage of only 3 Java flaws that had all been corrected long, long before.

One of the flaws is a bug resulting from buffer overflow and is named CVE-2009-3867 with which malware can be injected inside an overly lengthy file://URL argument. Further, about 2,638,311 attacks have occurred with this flaw that Microsoft, the software giant located on 1,119,191 PCs.

The second flaw called CVE-2008-5353 was abused for carrying out 3,560,669 malware attacks that were identified on 1,196,480 systems, while the third one called CVE-2010-0094 accounted for 213,502 assaults, which Microsoft detected on 173,123 computers.

Remarking about the problem, former reporter Brian Krebs for The Washington Post who is also a famous security researcher stated that his research revealed why the spike occurred, with the research conducted before the third quarter i.e. July-September 2010. According to him, the web attackers assembled Java exploits inside several high rated "exploit packs" that were crimeware toolkits traded on the underground world of hackers. The toolkits helped to easily inject code into malevolent or compromised websites which took advantage of various browser vulnerabilities so that malicious software could be effectively installed, Krebs explained. Krebsonsecurity.com published this on October 18, 2010.

Eventually both Krebs and Stewart (of Microsoft) recommended that users should use all obtainable security patches to make Java up to date in order that their computers did not become contaminated with any malware.

Related article: Microsoft Patches Live OneCare to Tackle Quarantined E-Mails

» SPAMfighter News - 10/27/2010