Critical Mac OS X Java Vulnerabilities

May 20, 2009 by Ross McKillop

As reported by Slashdot, OS X is still vulnerable to a security flaw via Java. According to bikemonkey:

(this vulnerability allows) malicious code to escape the Java sandbox and run arbitrary commands with the permissions of the executing user. This may result in untrusted Java applets executing arbitrary code merely by visiting a web page hosting the applet. The issue is trivially exploitable.

It is strongly suggested that you disable Java applets in your browsers and disable Open “safe” files after downloading in Safari.

There’s a proof of concept here which will execute /usr/bin/say and ‘read’ you a message - showing that any file you have permission to run, someone else can run too, just by embedding Java on a web page.