How severe is CVE-2010-0840?

CVE-2010-0840 has a CVSS score of 9.8/10, rated CRITICAL. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which products are affected by CVE-2010-0840?

CVE-2010-0840 affects the following products: canonical ubuntu linux, opensuse opensuse, oracle jre.

How do I patch CVE-2010-0840?

No patch has shipped for CVE-2010-0840 yet — track the canonical ubuntu linux advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds below in the meantime.

How do I detect CVE-2010-0840 across my infrastructure?

Inventory every canonical ubuntu linux deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.

How do I mitigate CVE-2010-0840 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.

Is CVE-2010-0840 actively exploited in the wild?

Yes. There are 4 known exploit references for CVE-2010-0840, including 1 documented proof-of-concept exploit on Exploit-DB and 3 in-the-wild exploitations observed on GitHub and other sources. Treat this as actively exploitable and prioritize patching immediately. All exploit code should only be run in an isolated sandbox environment for research or authorized testing — never against production systems without explicit written authorization.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2010-0840?

CVE-2010-0840 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 96.3%, placing it in the 100th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. A score above 50% indicates significantly elevated exploitation risk — immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Is CVE-2010-0840 in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog?

Yes. CVE-2010-0840 (Oracle JRE Unspecified Vulnerability) was added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog on 2022-05-25. CISA required all US federal civilian agencies to remediate this vulnerability by 2022-06-15. The required action was: Apply updates per vendor instructions. Being listed in the KEV catalog is the strongest possible confirmation of active exploitation — treat this as a critical priority.

Which products and versions are affected by CVE-2010-0840?

CVE-2010-0840 affects canonical ubuntu linux (4 versions, e.g. 8.04, 8.10, 9.04…); opensuse opensuse (3 versions, e.g. 11.0, 11.1, 11.2); oracle jre (3 versions, e.g. 1.4.2_25, 1.5.0, 1.6.0). Check the affected-products list on this page against your deployed version to confirm exposure.

Is there exploit tooling available for CVE-2010-0840?

A Metasploit module references CVE-2010-0840, which lowers the barrier to weaponization. Public exploit tooling significantly increases real-world risk — prioritize patching and ensure detection coverage. Exploit tooling should only ever be used in isolated, authorized testing environments.

When was CVE-2010-0840 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2010-0840 was published on April 1, 2010 and was last updated on June 16, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🛡️

CISA KEV · ACTIVELY EXPLOITED

CRITICAL severity

CVE-2010-0840 — Ubuntu Linux

CRITICAL

CVE-2010-0840 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) remote code execution vulnerability in canonical ubuntu linux. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-05-25) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.

Unspecified vulnerability in the Java Runtime Environment component in Oracle Java SE and Java for Business 6 Update 18, 5.0 Update 23, and 1.4.2_25 allows remote attackers to affect…

Published

Apr 1, 2010

Updated

Jun 16, 2026

Affected

3 products

Patched

See advisory

Exploits

4 known

Exploitation data as of Oct 22, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, CISA KEV, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

Actively exploited in the wild

Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2022-05-25. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-06-15.
CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2010-0840.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

96.3%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Very High Risk0.00%

Lower risk than most CVEs100th percentile — riskier than 100% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2010-0840 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Description

Unspecified vulnerability in the Java Runtime Environment component in Oracle Java SE and Java for Business 6 Update 18, 5.0 Update 23, and 1.4.2_25 allows remote attackers to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability via unknown vectors. NOTE: the previous information was obtained from the March 2010 CPU. Oracle has not commented on claims from a reliable researcher that this is related to improper checks when executing privileged methods in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), which allows attackers to execute arbitrary code via (1) an untrusted object that extends the trusted class but has not modified a certain method, or (2) "a similar trust issue with interfaces," aka "Trusted Methods Chaining Remote Code Execution Vulnerability."

Affected Products

3 products · 10 configurations

ubuntu linuxcanonical

4 versions

8.048.109.049.10

opensuseopensuse

3 versions

11.011.111.2

Application

jreoracle

3 versions

1.4.2_251.5.01.6.0

Exploits & PoCs

Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.

EDB-16297remotemultiple✓ Verified

Java - 'Statement.invoke()' Trusted Method Chain (Metasploit)

by Metasploit · Dec 15, 2010

Exploit-DB Source

Detection & mitigation playbook

Vendor / appliance

Detect
Inventory every canonical ubuntu linux deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2010-0840 yet — track the canonical ubuntu linux advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.

Fixing This On Your OS

If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.

Red HatCritical

Product	Fixed in	Advisory
Extras for RHEL 3	`java-1.4.2-ibm-0:1.4.2.13.5-1jpp.1.el3`	RHSA-2010:0574
Extras for RHEL 4	`java-1.6.0-sun-1:1.6.0.19-1jpp.1.el4`	RHSA-2010:0337
Extras for RHEL 4	`java-1.5.0-sun-0:1.5.0.22-1jpp.3.el4`	RHSA-2010:0338
Extras for RHEL 4	`java-1.6.0-ibm-1:1.6.0.8-1jpp.1.el4`	RHSA-2010:0383
Extras for RHEL 4	`java-1.5.0-ibm-1:1.5.0.11.2-1jpp.1.el4`	RHSA-2010:0489
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5	`java-1.6.0-openjdk-1:1.6.0.0-1.11.b16.el5`	RHSA-2010:0339
Red Hat Network Satellite Server v 5.3	`java-1.6.0-ibm-1:1.6.0.8-1jpp.1.el4`	RHSA-2010:0471
RHEL 4 for SAP	`java-1.4.2-ibm-sap-0:1.4.2.13.5.sap-1jpp.1.el4_8`	RHSA-2010:0586

UbuntuCRITICAL

USN-923-1Ubuntu

Frequently Asked Questions

O3 Security · Runtime Protection

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