Java update for Mac OS X 10.5

Stephen Withers
Friday, 04 September 2009 05:29

IT Industry - Development

Apple has updated Java for Mac OS X 10.5, promising improved reliability, security and compatibility. Other recent Mac OS X updates are also listed.

Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 5 Java SE 6 to version 1.6.0_15, J2SE 5.0 to version 1.5.0_20, and J2SE 1.4.2 to 1.4.2_22.

Apple states the update delivers improved reliability, security and compatibility.

The update addresses multiple security vulnerabilities in each of the three versions of Java that can allow privilege escalation so an untrusted applet may run with the privileges of the current user.

It also addresses a vulnerability that allowed a malicious Java Web Start application to cause arbitrary code execution.

The update still leaves the Mac's version of Java behind other platforms. For example, the current version of Java SE 6 is 1.6.0_16.

The good news is that _16 does not include security fixes, though it does contain the latest time zone data, and that could be important to some applications in particular geographical locations.

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