Security Analysis Report Topic: Legacy Software Risk Management

is a flaw in the Java AWT library that allowed an untrusted Java applet to elevate privileges. CVE-2017-3289 affected the Java Deployment Toolkit. With Update 80, there is no defense against these except to disable the entire Java browser plugin.

Due to a failure in validating signature parameters, an attacker could present a completely blank signature (zeros for the critical variables), and the Java validation mechanism would accept it as valid. This allows attackers to forge SSL/TLS certificates, web tokens (JWTs), and SAML assertions. Why Java 7u80 is Inherently Unsafe

Allowing untrusted code to break out of the Java Sandbox.

Even as 7u80 was released, security researchers were actively discovering new methods to bypass the security patches included in the update. The nature of Java’s reflection capabilities made it a "cat-and-mouse" game for Oracle.

Mitigation and remediation (prioritized action plan)