Oracle previews 27 security patches

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Oracle has issued a preview of its first, bumper round of product patches for the New Year late yesterday, which will contain 27 security fixes when released next Tuesday.

The patches will address dozens of security gaps in multiple versions of its database, e-business suite and application server products including those with Oracle's highest vulnerability rating of 'critical'.

The IT giant said eight of the updates will fix flaws in its database associated with queuing, core relational database management system (RDBMS), Oracle spatial and extensible markup language (XML) and Oracle Agent functionality. But all of the flaws require knowledge of the database software's usernames and passwords.

The Oracle e-business suite will be the subject of seven patches, three of which can be exploited through remote network access and without the need for a username and password.

Six updates focus on Oracle's application server product in the areas of its internet directory software, forms, worklist application and its business process execution language (BPEL).

Oracle's Enterprise Manager and Collaboration Suite get one update each, while Oracle's acquired product base is not overlooked, with four updates for JD Edwards and PeopleSoft.

Although 27 updates may seem like a lot, it is only just over half the 51 updates Oracle last released in October 2007. The vendor makes its security patches available on a quarterly basis through what is known as its 'Critical Patch Update'.

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