It's that time again: there are new Oracle JVM updates released today (Oct 21, 2025) for the current long-term support (LTS) releases of Oracle Java, 8, 11, 17, 21, and 25. (The previous short-term release, Java 24, is no longer updated.)

TLDR: The new updates are 1.8.0_471 (aka 8u471), 11.0.29, 17.0.17, 21.0.9, and 25.0.1, respectively. More on the updates below, including links to more info on each of them including what changed, bug fixes, and the security fixes each version contains. (I also offer a quick assessment of the updates with respect to my primary audience, users of CFML engines.)

Yep, kind of crazy that there are now 5 current Oracle Java "LTS" releases, for "reasons". And usually openjdk updates are released at the same time or soon after.

Oracle calls these updates "critical patch updates" (yep, "CPU"), but they are in fact scheduled quarterly updates (Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct, with specific dates listed here), so that the "critical" aspect of this nomenclature may sometimes be a bit overstated. As is generally the case with these Java updates, most of them have the same changes and fixes across the four JVM versions, though not always.

For some folks, that's all they need to hear. For others, whether this your first time updating Java or your fiftieth, there are some things that you may or may not know, as I cover here.

Topics:

• Finding more info on these most recent Java updates
• Quick assessment with respect to CFML engines
• Finding more on security matters addressed in these Java updates
• Obtaining the JVM update, from Oracle or from Adobe
• Other topics you may be interested to know, and where I discuss them
• Wrapping up, getting more help

Finding more info on these most recent Java updates

As for what changed in the updates, see the release notes for each of 1.8.0_471, 11.0.29, 17.0.17, 21.0.9, and 25.0.1. Again, the Java 24 last updated in Jul 2025 is now no longer updated by Oracle, as it was in effect a "short-term" release, supplanted by 25. The others are what Oracle calls "long-term support" or LTS releases.

These Oracle release notes have sections on each of "New Features", "Known Issues", "Issues Fixed", "Other notes", and "Bug Fixes"--each as may apply to that specific update, which is why I am not listing all these changes here. See the release note for the update you are considering applying. That said, some changes may indeed be (and typically are) found in all four versions.

Quick assessment of changes, with respect to CFML engines

While the update info I share in these posts may interest ANY users of Java (indeed whether Oracle Java or OpenJDK), I'll note that the main audience for my blog are folks using the CFML engines, Adobe ColdFusion (coldfusion.com), Lucee (lucee.org) or BoxLang (boxlang.io).

(And as for those running ColdFusion, you must only use a Java version suited to your CF version. CF2025 runs on Java 21 (only), and CF2023 runs on Java 17 only, while CF2021 runs on Java 11 only. Also, Adobe formally supports using only Oracle Java, which they license for use with CF--only. More on that in additional resources I link to below.)

As for folks on any of the CFML engines, I'll say that my assessment of this update (for all the versions) is that none of the changes (including removals or additions) seem significant to the use of Java as underlying those CFML engines (which compile CFML into and run it atop Java).

That said, be sure also to assess the security matters discussed in the next major section, "Finding more on security matters addressed in these Java updates". And of course it's not ALWAYS the case that there's not much significant to the Java updates, so indeed if you may be skipping some Java updates to get to this one, see my discussion about that in one of my final sections below, "Other topics you may be interested to know".

A couple of particular matters to note

Still, a couple of matters may be of interest.

First, for those on Java 21 and below, see the item, "Improved Logging Behavior for javax.net.debug=ssl JSSE Debug Property", which explains how a change may lead to a potentially substantial increase in logging if using that feature in your JVM startup args.

Second, for those on Mac, using any of the updated Java versions, see also the heading "Datagram Packet Loss on macOS 26 and macOS 15.6 and Above", about a reason you may want to consider using the jvm startup arg,

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Finding more on security matters addressed in these Java updates

As for security fixes included in this update, that's covered elsewhere. You will (soon, if not now as you read this) be able to see the single document listing Java security fixes in these most recent updates. That should take you to a section labelled "Oracle Java SE Risk Matrix", which is not yet there as I post this entry, but should be soon. Related to this is the Text Form of Risk Matrix for Oracle Java SE, which should take you to a section labeled, "Text Form of Risk Matrix for Oracle Java SE"--but as I write the page gets a ""we found a phone" 404 error. Both problems should be resolved by later today, from past experience.

As for that second link, pay close attention to "notes" offered there for each vulnerability, as that may temper the severity. (Note as well that while both these documents cover ALL Oracle products, I have offered in the first paragraph above links to the Java-specific sections of the pages. Focus on references to "Java SE" rather than any specific to GraalVM, which is not the focus of the discussion in this post.)

Watch also that many times the listed issues indicate that a vulnerability may be "difficult to exploit" and that many "[do] not apply to Java deployments, typically in servers, that load and run only trusted code (e.g., code installed by an administrator)", which may reduce the concern for you about them depending on your perspective.

That said, these documents could also change between now and when you see this post, so it's your responsibility to assess that information carefully. And regardless of whether such vulnerabilities may seem to apply to you, generally folks should seek to keep their JVM updated, or at least avoid falling too far behind.

Obtaining the JVM update, from Oracle

As for obtaining downloads of Java updates, you can find all the current versions on this one page. Note that there are tabs for the installers for each supported OS (Linux, macOS, and Windows), both installers and zips/"compressed archives".

That said, note that while the TOP of the page offers the LATEST Java versions (Java 25, there is also a tab at the top next to 25 that offers Java 21).

As for the earlier LTS versions, those are offered FURTHER down the page (which is easy to miss). Here are direct links to get to those: Java 17, Java 11 and Java 8.

And while you DO need to sign in there to obtain the Java 17, 11 and 8 download files, an account is free. (The updates for Java 25 and above do NOT require a login on the Oracle site, and the Java 21 updates will not until Sept 2026--a year after Java 25 was released.) All this has to do with licensing of Java, which is beyond the scope of this post to discuss. (Again: to users of Adobe ColdFusion, my primary audience, Adobe licenses Oracle Java for our use of it with CF--but CF only. More on that in another blog post I discuss and link to below.)

Obtaining the JVM update, from Adobe

And since the focus of my blog and work is mostly focused on those using Adobe ColdFusion, I'll clarify for them that Adobe also offers the Oracle Java downloads, such that CF users need not log into the Oracle site as discussed above.

See the CF Downloads page, and its last section offering Java installers, which includes the installers or zip/archive options, for each of Windows, Linux, and MacOS. Sometimes Adobe gets these downloads posted as soon as Oracle releases them, but often it may take some days before the latest update appears, in which case consider the Oracle links in the previous section. (Note that Adobe formally supports only the use of Oracle Java, not other OpenJDK implementations.)

And while some assert that CF folks "must use those from the CF downloads page", every time I've done a binary compare of the files, they have been identical to those offered on the Oracle site (at least for the identical build number, which may change slightly over time on the Oracle site though not the Adobe site). As this installer includes the Java license, I can't see how anyone could assert that it matters WHERE you get an identical installer. But IANAL. The choice is yours if you want the update ASAP and Adobe doesn't offer it yet.

Other topics you may be interested to know, and where I discuss them

Some readers may find the above so far to have been "a lot to consider" already, but there is indeed far more that you could and should consider before applying a Java update. And for a few years, I would cover such additional topics within this sort of blog post, each time I announced the new JVM update. But I've decided recently to split that off into its own blog entry, and I will point to that instead in each of these such JVM update announcement posts, in order to keep this relatively "brief".

In that other post, I address such issues as :

• Obtaining and learning still more about available JVM updates
• What about other JVM distributions besides Oracle?
• News for my CF audience (which CF versions support what JVM versions, how to apply the update--including when using Commandbox or Lucee, why CF users should NOT for now use Java 21 and up with CF, etc.)
• Should you apply the update? how soon?

Then I cover a few things that you should be aware of if skipping over previous JVM updates:

• Beware a change in the July 2023 JVM update, regarding Zip64ExtraFieldValidation
• Beware a change in the January 2023 JVM update, regarding a change in how the JDK installer works
• Beware a change in the October 2022 JVM update, regarding Java no longer trusting jars signed with SHA-1
• Beware a change in the April 2021 JVM update, regarding calls out to anything running TLS 1.1 or earlier

Again, that other post of mine with more info is here: Several things to consider when applying JVM updates.

Wrapping up, getting more help

I hope all that may be helpful for you.

Finally, feel free to ask questions or raise comments below, or for direct help note that I offer remote screenshare consulting help, where I am usually able to quickly fix problems (that might take many folks hours to resolve--if they don't deal with these issues daily like I do in helping people).

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