What's New: Security Warning for IE/Java Virtual Machine

Microsoft has issued a security warning for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) component of its Internet Explorer browser. An attacker that convinces a user to visit his web site could use a malicious web page to execute code on the user's computer, and may cause Internet Explorer to exit.

Microsoft is currently evaluating an update to fix the security hole. In the meantime they recommend, in essence, disabling the Microsoft JVM. ITS concurs, given the on-again, off-again status of the Microsoft JVM (currently if it is uninstalled using a special utility, for example, Microsoft provides no way to reinstall it). Instead, ITS recommends users switch to Sun's Java Virtual Machine. Sun, as the author of Java, has a much better supported version of the JVM for Windows users.

UPDATE: Microsoft has released a fix for this problem via Windows Update.

After installing this update, ITS suggests you download and install the latest Sun JVM from ITS StartCenter. You will need to restart your PC afterwards if prompted.

Wednesday, Jul 6, 2005 10:30 am CDT

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