Sun Microsystems announced it has patched several security issues which were discovered in the Java system, flaws which could expose Linux and Solaris users to remote attacks.

The security problems were labeled as critical in a report published by Secunia, which is only a notch less severe than the "Extremely critical" warning and it usually describes flaws which open the door to a remote hacker which can access the entire system and compromise data or the system itself.

All security issues that have been spotted and patched by Sun affected specific versions of the Sun Java Software Development Kit (SDK) and Java Development Kit (JDK) which load on computers running Microsoft Windows, Linux or Sun's own Solaris operating system. According to Sun, the flaws could allow an attacker to use a Java application to read and write files without permission, or to run code on a vulnerable computer.

The vulnerabilities also affect specific versions of the Sun Java Software Development Kit (SDK) and Java Development Kit (JDK). The French FrSIRT security company confirmed the critical warning level associated with these flaws, even if there have been no reports of infections due to this security problem.

To keep your system safe, users should update to JDK and JRE 5.0 Update 4, to SDK and JRE 1.4.2_09 or later and to SDK and JRE 1.3.1_16 or later.