Disable Java? think about it.

Oracle continues to be steady in terms of selling new database and middleware licenses and cloud-service subscriptions, which rose 5 percent over 2011. Conversely, Oracle is still struggling in its hardware division, which makes servers, storage, switches, and other items. Total hardware revenue dipped 19 percent from a year ago.

Adam Gowdiak, a researcher with Poland's Security Explorations who has discovered several bugs in the software over the past year, told Reuters that the update leaves unfixed several other, notable security issues

which could result in the installation of malware, identity theft or used to rope personal computers in to becoming unauthorized botnets -- which can then be used in denial-of-service attacks against other sites.

The problem is that if you have no idea what you are looking for, it's almost impossible to find it. Suppose a process has made itself hidden to the task manager by hooking EnumProcesses. You might think this would be an easy case to detect. However, the process could be hooking EnumProcesses through a variety of different ways. For example, an unconditional hook at the start of the function, an IAT hook, causing an access violation to occur at EnumProcessesand catching that with a VEH and modifying the EIP/RIP, etc. etc. Even in this simple case, it is not possible to guarantee detection of the hook. This is all assuming that the hook has been performed at usermode on a specific API and also that the code makes no attempt to hide itself from detection.

If you are looking for general guidelines, the best method is probably to look at common detouring techniques.

Java Stumbles Again

Not long after the Department of Homeland Security was advising users to disable Java, another flaw has been discovered in Oracle's programming language.

Last week a bug was found that undermined Java's "maximum security setting." That setting, which Oracle activated by default in the last hasty update of the software, requires a user to give their OK to run unsigned Java applets. Because of the flaw, unsigned Java apps can run on a Windows system regardless of the Java security settings.

Instead of fixing security issues found in the previous version of Java, the most recent release of the program merely sidesteps them, said Bogdan Botezatu, a senior e-threat analyst with cyber security software maker Bitdefender.

"They just tried to prevent the user from triggering the issue," Botezatu told TechNewsWorld.

Leaving the resolution of security issues to the user is not a good idea. "One of the worse things a developer can do is let the user make security decisions," he said. If a pop-up message appears when a user is in the middle of doing something they want done, they'll click OK regardless of what the message says.