What's New: Java Flaw Is Widespread Threat

On the heels of our suggestion to keep all your software updated, Google staff recently uncovered a security flaw in Sun's Java Runtime environment that has the potential to affect millions of PCs, devices, cell phones, and PDAs. Sun has patched the flaw in their latest update to Java Runtime, which can be downloaded to a PC, but other devices such as cell phones, PDAs, and other hardware with embedded Java code will be much harder to update.

To update Java on a Windows computer, open your Control Panel and double click the Java icon. Click the Update tab, then click the Update Now button. Also, be sure to remove previous versions which still contain vulnerabilities. To do that, in Control Panel open the Add or Remove Programs icon. In the list of installed programs, the current version as of this writing is Java(TM) 6 Update 2. One by one, select previous versions and click the Remove button to uninstall them. If prompted, restart your computer, and return to Add or Remove Programs and uninstall remaining entries.

Tuesday, Jul 24, 2007 12:07 pm CDT

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