And just like that, another new version of Java. Version 7 update 17 (what happened to update 16?) includes fixes for some serious security vulnerabilities, as outlined in the associated security alert.

You’ll forgive me for not trusting Oracle’s word on whether any particular vulnerability has truly been fixed. I’ll defer to Adam Gowdiak and other security researchers for the final judgment. Certainly 7u17 is the latest version of Java, and it presumably fixes some of the holes in 7u15, so anyone using Java – especially in their browser – should install it ASAP. But I’m going to leave Java 7u17 flagged as possibly vulnerable.