The Java exploit explained and what you should do about it

Java…everyone by now has probably heard of the latest Java Exploit  (the security hole that could allow malware and viruses into your computer). It started a couple of weeks ago and I have been reading online about it and wasn’t sure if I should newsletter this or not, or even blog about it. This happened last summer too and I actually put out a newsletter about it and it caused somewhat of a social media panic. Some folks got hit, but the majority DID NOT.

Yes, it’s very important to keep your software up to date. But what happens with a 3rd party software app like Java or Adobe (that you need on your computer to help it just run nicely) have holes and security issues? You have to spend time to remove them, disable them or reinstall them. And with not many realiable news sources, it’s hard to keep track of the “Official things to do”! Even from a “Professional Technical Point of View”.

So you go to the Java website http://www.java.com  there is NOTHING about this exploit on their main page.Then you have to go to Google and see what’s going on. I Google “Java exploit” and I found this”

New Java exploit sells for $5000 on Black market (this tells me as the end user of Java nothing really)

What??? Ok, so it’s selling now and still…what are we to do with the damn thing? Doesn’t tell us. So I hit on Mashable and found this dated Jan 13th…..

http://mashable.com/2013/01/13/java-exploit/

How come I have to find out about this from Mashable? What about on the Java.com site! This frustrated technician is somewhat concerned about the message delivery methods from Oracle (who owns Java). Btw…it also took me 4 links deep to finally find the official security release on this exploit. haha…they didn’t of course send you back to the java.com site to just do what you should do, Update your Java to the newest version! It’s really a bunch of techno mumble jumbo, it’s not easy for me to even read through the tech talk….so how will the average computer user read it?