The United States government has released a bulletin stating that users should disable Java on their computers, as recently the risk for potential hacks and security breaches using the software has increased drastically. Yet another Java exploit has been found in the most recent, fully patched version of the software, and according to Ars Technica this flaw is currently being exploited in the wild.
Even more concerning is how the exploit came to exist: last year Oracle released a patch to fix an earlier security issue, but the patch was incomplete and caused this current flaw to arise. The fact that Java is installed on more than a billion devices worldwide makes it a hot target for hackers, and with the recently discovered flaw the United States government has had to advise users to disable the software.
Oracle claims that a patch is in the works, but this could simply pave the way for more security issues. Java is well known for flaws among computer-savvy users, so as always we recommend not to install the software unless absolutely necessary.
Source: Yahoo! | Thanks for the tip, John