CVE-2012-4681

CRITICALNVD 9.89.8—
EchelonGraph scoreHIGH confidence

Score elevated to 9.8 because this CVE is listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-03-03), indicating real-world exploitation has been confirmed by US federal agencies. NVD baseline CVSS 9.8 retained for reference. Confidence: HIGH.

Triggered by: CISA KEV (actively exploited)
Sources: cisa_kev, epss, ghsa, nvd
Trending — 5 sources updated this weekExploited in the wild
9.8EG
EchelonGraph verdictPatch nowTreat as an emergency — this is being exploited.
  • Actively exploited in the wild (CISA-KEV)
CISA-KEV: ExploitedEPSS PROB: 99%CVSS: 9.8Exploit: cisa kev · ssvc active · kev ransomware · Metasploit · Exploit-DB (verified) · epss top5pct · epss high · public exploitExposed: 0

A fix is available — apply it.

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.

CVSS v3
9.8
EG Score
9.8(high)
EG Risk
99(Act)
EG Risk 99/100SSVC: Act

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).

How it’s computed
Severity98% × 45%
Exploitation100% × 40%
Automatability100% × 15%
Action: Fix now — active exploitation, automatable, high impact.
EPSS PROB
99%
EPSS %ILE
100%
KEV
⚠ Exploited

Published

August 28, 2012

Last Modified

April 21, 2026

Advisory Details (5)

Auto-updated Apr 29, 2026
⚠️ Active exploitation confirmed. No patch confirmed yet.
generic🔴 Active Exploitation

DeepEnd Research: CVE-2012-4681 Java 7 0-Day vulnerability analysis

http://www.deependresearch.org/2012/08/java-7-vulnerability-analysis.html
generic

About Secunia Research | Flexera

http://secunia.com/advisories/51044
generic
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2012-1225.html
generic

'[security bulletin] HPSBUX02824 SSRT100970 rev.1 - HP-UX Running Java, Remote Execution of Arbitrary' - MARC

http://marc.info/?l=bugtraq&m=135109152819176&w=2
generic🔴 Active Exploitation

Immunity Products: Java 0day analysis (CVE-2012-4681)

http://immunityproducts.blogspot.com/2012/08/java-0day-analysis-cve-2012-4681.html

Patch Availability(3)

Vendor / EcosystemFixed in / PatchReleasedSource
redhatjava-1.7.0-ibm-1:1.7.0.2.0-1jpp.3.el6_32012-09-18redhat
redhatjava-1.7.0-oracle-1:1.7.0.7-1jpp.5.el6_32012-09-04redhat
redhatjava-1.7.0-openjdk-1:1.7.0.5-2.2.1.el6_3.32012-09-03redhat

Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.

Weakness Classification(1)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

All Vendor Advisories

(3)

Every vendor that published an advisory referencing this CVE — pulled from our cve_vendor_advisories aggregation. Click any row for the vendor's original advisory page.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 55× in last 7d / 330× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

Showing the most recent 100 of 692 total refreshes for this CVE.

  1. 2026-07-27 08:00 UTCVendor advisory
  2. 2026-07-27 07:59 UTCGHSA enrichment
  3. 2026-07-27 03:48 UTCVendor advisory
  4. 2026-07-27 03:48 UTCGHSA enrichment
  5. 2026-07-26 23:37 UTCVendor advisory
  6. 2026-07-26 23:37 UTCGHSA enrichment
  7. 2026-07-26 19:27 UTCVendor advisory
  8. 2026-07-26 19:27 UTCGHSA enrichment
  9. 2026-07-26 15:17 UTCVendor advisory
  10. 2026-07-26 15:17 UTCGHSA enrichment
  11. 2026-07-26 11:07 UTCEG score recompute
  12. 2026-07-26 11:07 UTCVendor advisory
  13. 2026-07-26 11:07 UTCGHSA enrichment
  14. 2026-07-26 06:54 UTCVendor advisory
  15. 2026-07-26 06:53 UTCGHSA enrichment
  16. 2026-07-26 02:42 UTCVendor advisory
  17. 2026-07-26 02:42 UTCGHSA enrichment
  18. 2026-07-23 01:08 UTCEG score recompute
  19. 2026-07-23 00:11 UTCEG score recompute
  20. 2026-07-22 22:25 UTCVendor advisory
  21. 2026-07-22 22:24 UTCGHSA enrichment
  22. 2026-07-22 21:50 UTCEG score recompute
  23. 2026-07-22 19:40 UTCCISA KEV update
  24. 2026-07-22 18:14 UTCVendor advisory
  25. 2026-07-22 18:14 UTCGHSA enrichment
Show 75 more
  1. 2026-07-22 14:04 UTCVendor advisory
  2. 2026-07-22 14:04 UTCGHSA enrichment
  3. 2026-07-22 09:53 UTCVendor advisory
  4. 2026-07-22 09:53 UTCGHSA enrichment
  5. 2026-07-22 05:43 UTCVendor advisory
  6. 2026-07-22 05:43 UTCGHSA enrichment
  7. 2026-07-22 01:33 UTCVendor advisory
  8. 2026-07-22 01:33 UTCGHSA enrichment
  9. 2026-07-21 20:58 UTCVendor advisory
  10. 2026-07-21 20:58 UTCGHSA enrichment
  11. 2026-07-21 16:48 UTCVendor advisory
  12. 2026-07-21 16:48 UTCGHSA enrichment
  13. 2026-07-21 14:37 UTCCISA KEV update
  14. 2026-07-21 12:39 UTCVendor advisory
  15. 2026-07-21 12:39 UTCGHSA enrichment
  16. 2026-07-21 08:29 UTCVendor advisory
  17. 2026-07-21 08:29 UTCGHSA enrichment
  18. 2026-07-21 04:19 UTCVendor advisory
  19. 2026-07-21 04:18 UTCGHSA enrichment
  20. 2026-07-21 00:07 UTCVendor advisory
  21. 2026-07-21 00:07 UTCGHSA enrichment
  22. 2026-07-20 19:56 UTCEG score recompute
  23. 2026-07-20 19:56 UTCVendor advisory
  24. 2026-07-20 19:56 UTCGHSA enrichment
  25. 2026-07-20 17:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  26. 2026-07-20 17:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  27. 2026-07-20 15:47 UTCVendor advisory
  28. 2026-07-20 15:46 UTCGHSA enrichment
  29. 2026-07-20 11:36 UTCVendor advisory
  30. 2026-07-20 11:36 UTCGHSA enrichment
  31. 2026-07-20 07:26 UTCVendor advisory
  32. 2026-07-20 07:26 UTCGHSA enrichment
  33. 2026-07-20 03:16 UTCVendor advisory
  34. 2026-07-20 03:16 UTCGHSA enrichment
  35. 2026-07-19 23:06 UTCVendor advisory
  36. 2026-07-19 23:06 UTCGHSA enrichment
  37. 2026-07-19 18:55 UTCVendor advisory
  38. 2026-07-19 18:55 UTCGHSA enrichment
  39. 2026-07-19 14:45 UTCVendor advisory
  40. 2026-07-19 14:45 UTCGHSA enrichment
  41. 2026-07-19 10:35 UTCGHSA enrichment
  42. 2026-07-19 06:23 UTCVendor advisory
  43. 2026-07-19 06:23 UTCGHSA enrichment
  44. 2026-07-19 02:13 UTCVendor advisory
  45. 2026-07-19 02:13 UTCGHSA enrichment
  46. 2026-07-18 22:03 UTCVendor advisory
  47. 2026-07-18 22:03 UTCGHSA enrichment
  48. 2026-07-18 17:50 UTCVendor advisory
  49. 2026-07-18 17:50 UTCGHSA enrichment
  50. 2026-07-18 13:39 UTCVendor advisory
  51. 2026-07-18 13:39 UTCGHSA enrichment
  52. 2026-07-18 09:29 UTCVendor advisory
  53. 2026-07-18 09:29 UTCGHSA enrichment
  54. 2026-07-18 05:19 UTCVendor advisory
  55. 2026-07-18 05:19 UTCGHSA enrichment
  56. 2026-07-18 01:09 UTCVendor advisory
  57. 2026-07-18 01:09 UTCGHSA enrichment
  58. 2026-07-17 20:59 UTCVendor advisory
  59. 2026-07-17 20:59 UTCGHSA enrichment
  60. 2026-07-17 16:49 UTCVendor advisory
  61. 2026-07-17 16:49 UTCGHSA enrichment
  62. 2026-07-17 12:37 UTCVendor advisory
  63. 2026-07-17 12:37 UTCGHSA enrichment
  64. 2026-07-17 08:27 UTCEG score recompute
  65. 2026-07-17 08:27 UTCVendor advisory
  66. 2026-07-17 08:27 UTCGHSA enrichment
  67. 2026-07-17 04:17 UTCVendor advisory
  68. 2026-07-17 04:17 UTCGHSA enrichment
  69. 2026-07-17 00:07 UTCVendor advisory
  70. 2026-07-17 00:07 UTCGHSA enrichment
  71. 2026-07-16 19:58 UTCVendor advisory
  72. 2026-07-16 19:58 UTCGHSA enrichment
  73. 2026-07-16 17:04 UTCCISA KEV update
  74. 2026-07-16 15:48 UTCVendor advisory
  75. 2026-07-16 15:48 UTCGHSA enrichment

Publicly available exploits

(2 references)

Working exploit code is in the public domain (1 Metasploit module) (1 Exploit-DB entry). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.

  • Exploit-DBEDB-20865✓ verified
    First seen Aug 27, 2012

    Java 7 Applet - Remote Code Execution (Metasploit)

    Open source ↗
  • Metasploitexploit/multi/browser/java_jre17_exec✓ verified
    First seen Aug 26, 2012

    Java 7 Applet Remote Code Execution

    Open source ↗

Related CVEs(same vendor + same CWE)

Frequently asked(6)

What is CVE-2012-4681?
CVE-2012-4681 is a critical vulnerability published on August 28, 2012. 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…
When was CVE-2012-4681 disclosed?
CVE-2012-4681 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on August 28, 2012, with the most recent update on April 21, 2026. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2012-4681 actively exploited?
Yes. CISA added CVE-2012-4681 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on March 3, 2022, affecting Oracle Java SE. KEV listing indicates confirmed exploitation in the wild; this CVE warrants immediate patching attention.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2012-4681?
CVE-2012-4681 has a CVSS v3 base score of 9.8 (NVD).
Which products are affected by CVE-2012-4681?
CVE-2012-4681 affects Oracle Java SE. The full affected-products list, including version ranges and fixed versions, is shown in the Affected Packages section of this page.
How do I remediate CVE-2012-4681?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2012-4681, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

Dependency Blast Radius

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