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We've seen Java bugs in the news lately for use in co-ordinated attacks against large companies. A nameless firm (not the one I'm working with now) that happen

We've seen Java bugs in the news lately for use in co-ordinated attacks against large companies. A nameless firm (not the one I'm working with now) that happens to be one of Europes largest banks has insainly locked down versions windows, everything disabled, some custom thing that has hooked NT kernel functiosn to check which image is being loaded to be executed. And then it has Java. A very old, un-patched version running a vendor risk system (yes it is that french one your thinking of). This means that despite the frankly anoying parinoid security there, you can pwn any of the machines easily. As we see more targeted attacking, remember that Java is heavily used by a lot of rich, often inept due to size, firms.

Tloewald 14y ago
The federal government agency i deal with has similarly locked down computers but, as you say, java, old versions of browsers, and many unsigned applets.
pyre 14y ago
IIRC, the instances in the news were attacks on the Java applet, not necessarily the runtime. Even if it was against the runtime, without the applet, it would have to be a trojan.
martinced 14y ago
Do these "insanely locked down" Windows have a browser and does that browser enable Java applets? The 0-days affecting Java lately have all been using Java applets and drive-by exploits. I'm not saying it's not pathetic and lame for Java's security track records but it's not either as if your company was vulnerable to remote exploits in the case Java applets are not allowed in browsers. I'm running Java webapp servers and I've been really pissed off that I needed to patch to remote Denial of Service exploits (the hashmap / URL query parameters degenerating to O(n) instead of O(1) SNAFU and the "endless loop" while parsing a certain floating-point number) in late 2011 / early 2012 IIRC but basically that's it. The JVM is still incredibly secure on the server side (and can be installed on Unx systems in a user account, without needing to be root -- meaning that you can then lock down like mad that user account and have an even more secure setup). Now to be honest if your company was truly paranoid they wouldn't be using old version of Windows with in-house brittle hacks supposedly bringing "more security". I know that all too well (at Dexxia for example): some people somewhere decide on a shitty technology (Dexxia was at one point using shitty Java applets to allow clients to do online banking) and then says "We're going to have the most secure system ever". So these guys think* they're paranoid but they're using: a) Windows and b) Java applets. And at this point you have to wonder if you should laugh or cry at their definition of "paranoid". People really paranoid about security ain't letting Windows in (unless they like NSA backdoors and consider patch-tuesday to be a reliable way to execute) and ain't letting Java applets in.
- TheAnimus 14y ago
  Guess how they distrabute the Java application. However I really don't want to go too far into a former clients site details, just to say it was a laughably big gaping hole, that is really quite common in a lot of large enterprises. It was also completely seperate from my domain there)

Tloewald 14y ago

The federal government agency i deal with has similarly locked down computers but, as you say, java, old versions of browsers, and many unsigned applets.

pyre 14y ago

IIRC, the instances in the news were attacks on the Java applet, not necessarily the runtime. Even if it was against the runtime, without the applet, it would have to be a trojan.

martinced 14y ago

Do these "insanely locked down" Windows have a browser and does that browser enable Java applets? The 0-days affecting Java lately have all been using Java applets and drive-by exploits. I'm not saying it's not pathetic and lame for Java's security track records but it's not either as if your company was vulnerable to remote exploits in the case Java applets are not allowed in browsers. I'm running Java webapp servers and I've been really pissed off that I needed to patch to remote Denial of Service exploits (the hashmap / URL query parameters degenerating to O(n) instead of O(1) SNAFU and the "endless loop" while parsing a certain floating-point number) in late 2011 / early 2012 IIRC but basically that's it. The JVM is still incredibly secure on the server side (and can be installed on Unx systems in a user account, without needing to be root -- meaning that you can then lock down like mad that user account and have an even more secure setup). Now to be honest if your company was truly paranoid they wouldn't be using old version of Windows with in-house brittle hacks supposedly bringing "more security". I know that all too well (at Dexxia for example): some people somewhere decide on a shitty technology (Dexxia was at one point using shitty Java applets to allow clients to do online banking) and then says "We're going to have the most secure system ever". So these guys think* they're paranoid but they're using: a) Windows and b) Java applets. And at this point you have to wonder if you should laugh or cry at their definition of "paranoid". People really paranoid about security ain't letting Windows in (unless they like NSA backdoors and consider patch-tuesday to be a reliable way to execute) and ain't letting Java applets in.

TheAnimus 14y ago
Guess how they distrabute the Java application. However I really don't want to go too far into a former clients site details, just to say it was a laughably big gaping hole, that is really quite common in a lot of large enterprises. It was also completely seperate from my domain there)