For several weeks security experts have warned that the Blackhole exploit toolkit was about to gain a weapon for attacking unpatched holes in Java.
That day has arrived. According to this report from Computerworld U.S. a number of sources have confirmed the exploit is part of Blackhole. Now Mozilla, which makes the Firefox browser, has warned users to disable Java for the time being. One firm said it has found more than 100 domains with the exploit.
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The first reports of the potential problem came in early July, as this report from Infosecurity outlines.
One problem is that PC users don’t upgrade Java as often as they should — if they do at all. That’s a problem because Java is one of the first places hackers look to exploit. Related to that is the large number of computer users around the world who have no anti-malware defences on their machines.
Oracle Corp. took over control of Java when it bought Sun Microsystems in 2009.