Researchers find Java users woefully tardy on patching

Java has been a jackpot for hackers in recent months and an analysis of its users released Tuesday suggests why that's so.

More than 50 percent of Java users are running a version of the program that's more than two years old, according to the analysis based on more than one billion endpoints monitored by Websense Security Lab.

Morover, 75 percent of all users are running a version that's six months old or older. Although Oracle has scheduled a critical security update for Java on June 18, it's unlikely that there'll be a rush to install it, since 93 percent of the program's users have yet to install the last critical security update issued April 16.