Maven crashing with a bus error/invalid memory access given Java 10.6 update 3

I had this very annoying scenario where all of a sudden the following happened:

mvn

Invalid memory access of location 0x133cd800a rip=0x100504444

Bus error

This seemed to happen as a result of updating to Java 10.6 update 3 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard; but not straight away!

After a while I started to wonder if the update was installed correctly. So, I manually downloaded the update from here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/dl972

...and presto, things appear to be ok again... let's see how long that lasts!

I understand that as of this update, Apple are handing over control to Oracle in terms of managing the distribution of Java on Mac OS X. I think that this is generally good given that Apple has always been a little behind in terms of the latest Java release. Let's hope that the quality of the distro on Mac OS X does not go south though!