FreeBSD VuXML: Documenting security issues in FreeBSD and the FreeBSD Ports Collection

Java 1.7 -- security manager bypass

Affected packages
7.0 <= openjdk < 7.6.24_1
7.0 <= linux-sun-jdk < 7.7
7.0 <= linux-sun-jre < 7.7

Details

VuXML ID 16846d1e-f1de-11e1-8bd8-0022156e8794
Discovery 2012-08-27
Entry 2012-08-30
Modified 2012-08-31

US-CERT reports:

Oracle Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.7 contains a vulnerability that may allow an applet to call setSecurityManager in a way that allows setting of arbitrary permissions.

By leveraging the public, privileged getField() function, an untrusted Java applet can escalate its privileges by calling the setSecurityManager() function to allow full privileges, without requiring code signing.

This vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild, and exploit code is publicly available.

This exploit does not only affect Java applets, but every piece of software that relies on the Java Security Manager for sandboxing executable code is affected: malicious code can totally disable Security Manager.

References

CERT/CC Vulnerability Note 636312
CVE Name CVE-2012-4681
URL http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/distro-pkg-dev/2012-August/020065.html
URL http://www.deependresearch.org/2012/08/java-7-vulnerability-analysis.html
URL http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/alert-cve-2012-4681-1835715.html