Some weaknesses and vulnerabilities have been reported in Sun Java, which can be exploited by malicious people to potentially disclose sensitive information, bypass certain security restrictions, cause a DoS (Denial of Service), or compromise a user's system.

1) A weakness is caused by the update mechanism failing to update JRE to a new version when running on non-English Windows versions.

2) An error in the JRE Deployment Toolkit on Windows can be exploited to execute arbitrary code when viewing a specially crafted web page.

3) An error in the Java Web Start installer can be exploited to run a malicious Java Web Start application as trusted and executed arbitrary code.

4) An error in the implementation of the "HsbParser.getSoundBank()" function can be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow and potentially execute arbitrary code via an overly long "file://" URL argument.

5) An unspecified error when processing audio or image files can be exploited to potentially execute arbitrary code via an untrusted applet.

6) An error in the implementation of the "setDiffICM()" AWT function can be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow and potentially execute arbitrary code.

7) Three unspecified errors when processing audio or image files can be exploited to potentially execute arbitrary code via an untrusted applet.

8) An integer overflow error when processing the dimensions of a JPEG subsample can be exploited to corrupt memory and potentially execute arbitrary code.

9) An error when verifying HMAC digests can be exploited to potentially bypass authentication via a fake digital signature that is incorrectly accepted as valid by a Java application.

10) An error when decoding DER encoded data can be exploited to exhaust all available JRE memory.

11) An error when parsing HTTP headers can be exploited to exhaust all available JRE memory.

12) An error in the implementation of the "setBytePixels()" AWT function can be exploited to cause a heap-based buffer overflow and potentially execute arbitrary code.

NOTE: Various other information disclosure weaknesses and a crash while parsing TrueType fonts have also been reported.

Solution
Update to a fixed version.
Further details available to Secunia VIM customers

Provided and/or discovered by
3) Peter Csepely, reported via ZDI
4) an anonymous researcher, reported via ZDI
8) regenrecht, reported via ZDI
6, 12) Peter Vreugdenhil, reported via ZDI

The vendor also credits:
1) Tomasz "Tometzky" Ostrowski
2, 5) an anonymous researcher, reported via iDefense
7) regenrecht, reported via iDefense
9) Coda Hale
10, 11) BFK edv-consulting GmbH

Changelog
Further details available to Secunia VIM customers

Original Advisory
Sun:
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-66-269868-1
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-66-269869-1
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-66-269870-1
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-66-270474-1
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-66-270475-1
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-66-270476-1

ZDI:
http://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-09-076/
http://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-09-077/
http://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-09-078/
http://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-09-079/
http://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-09-080/

Deep Links
Links available to Secunia VIM customers