Oracle outlines steps to improve Java home, enterprise security

Zack Whittaker | ZDNet | 1st June 2013

Following high-profile hacks and breaches at major technology companies, including Apple and Facebook, the Java maker is knuckling down on the Web plug-in’s security.

Oracle is planning to change how it approaches Java fixes for security vulnerabilities, including adding centralized policy management with enterprise environment whitelisting functionality.

It’s hoped this effort will help to “decrease the exploitability and severity of potential Java vulnerabilities in the desktop environment,” and, “provide additional security protections for Java operating in the server environment,” according to Oracle’s Java platform software development team leader Nandini Ramani, writing in a blog post on Thursday.

While Ramani notes indirectly that some controversy stirred earlier this year following the successful hacking of Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and others, after systems running the Web plugin suffered zero-day attacks on previously unpatched vulnerabilities, the blog post centers on the “security worthiness of Java.”

Oracle tooted its own trumpet by sticking one to Java’s former owner, Sun Microsystems, stating that it had to adopt Oracle’s own fix schedule in order to resolve issues in “priority order” and “within a certain period of time.”

Visit ZDNet’s website to read the rest of this story.