Oracle has suffered another black eye over security flaws in its widely used Java software, as the US tech company on Monday settled a regulatory charge that it had deceived computer users about the safety of the software.
Java was singled out by Larry Ellison, the company’s chairman, as the key asset in his 2010 purchase of server maker Sun Microsystems. The software, which makes possible many features of web browsing, has since become an important weapon in Oracle’s arsenal against other tech companies. It prompted a partially successful lawsuit against Google’s Android mobile operating system that critics warn could have far-reaching effects in the tech world.
But security weaknesses in Java, dating from long before Oracle’s acquisition, have also made the software a problem for the company. In the worst incident, a number of leading tech companies, including Apple and Facebook, revealed in 2013 that attackers had used flaws in the software to penetrate their systems.