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CISA KEV · ACTIVELY EXPLOITED
CRITICAL severity

CVE-2012-4681 — Oracle

CRITICAL

CVE-2012-4681 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) CWE-284 vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-03-03) and has been used in ransomware campaigns — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.

Multiple vulnerabilities in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) component in Oracle Java SE 7 Update 6 and earlier allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted applet…

Published
Updated
Affected
6 products
Patched
See advisory
Exploits
7 known
Exploitation data as of Oct 21, 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 2022-03-03 — including use in ransomware campaigns. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-03-24.
  • 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-2012-4681.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
98.5%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
92.8%95.2%97.5%99.9%94.1%98.5%Apr 26Aug 26Oct 26

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

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2012-4681 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 394,415 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Description

Multiple vulnerabilities in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) component in Oracle Java SE 7 Update 6 and earlier allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted applet that bypasses SecurityManager restrictions by (1) using com.sun.beans.finder.ClassFinder.findClass and leveraging an exception with the forName method to access restricted classes from arbitrary packages such as sun.awt.SunToolkit, then (2) using "reflection with a trusted immediate caller" to leverage the getField method to access and modify private fields, as exploited in the wild in August 2012 using Gondzz.class and Gondvv.class.

Affected Products

6 products · 85 configurations
Application
jdkoracle
2 versions
1.6.01.7.0
Application
jreoracle
2 versions
1.6.01.7.0
OS
enterprise linux desktopredhat
1 version
6.0
OS
enterprise linux eusredhat
1 version
6.3
OS
enterprise linux serverredhat
1 version
6.0
OS
enterprise linux workstationredhat
1 version
6.0
Exploits & PoCs
7

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

EDB-20865remotejava✓ Verified

Java 7 Applet - Remote Code Execution (Metasploit)

by Metasploit · Aug 27, 2012

Exploit-DB Source

Detection & mitigation playbook

Vulnerability

  1. Detect

    Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).

  2. Remediation status

    No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2012-4681 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.

  3. Mitigate without a patch

    Put an independent control in front of the weakness: restrict the affected endpoint or interface to trusted networks, require an additional authentication factor or proxy-level check, and invalidate existing sessions and credentials in case the flaw has already been used.

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

This flaw allowed an attacker to circumvent all restrictions applied by the Java security manager. The Java security manager is used to sandbox Java applets in web browsers, but is also used in a variety of other applications. Red Hat has tested the flaw and confirmed that it affected Java SE 7 provided by OpenJDK 7…

ProductFixed inAdvisory
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6java-1.7.0-openjdk-1:1.7.0.5-2.2.1.el6_3.3RHSA-2012:1223
Supplementary for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6java-1.7.0-oracle-1:1.7.0.7-1jpp.5.el6_3RHSA-2012:1225
Supplementary for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6java-1.7.0-ibm-1:1.7.0.2.0-1jpp.3.el6_3RHSA-2012:1289

Frequently Asked Questions

Multiple vulnerabilities in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) component in Oracle Java SE 7 Update 6 and earlier allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted applet that bypasses SecurityManager restrictions by (1) using com.sun.beans.finder.ClassFinder.findClass and leveraging an exception with the forName method to access restricted classes from arbitrary packages such as sun.awt.SunToolkit, then (2) using "reflection with a trusted immediate caller" to leverage the getField method to access and modify private fields, as exploited in the wild in August 2012 using Gondzz.cl
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CVE-2012-4681: Oracle Improper Access Control (KEV)