Full Disclosure mailing list archives
RE: Oracle, where are the patches???
From: "Kornbrust, Alexander" <ak () red-database-security com>
Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 21:33:54 +0200
David, You are right. I have only a few things to add. 1.) In the April CPU 2006 patches for 9.2.0.7, Oracle forgot to sanitize a parameter in one of the SDO packages. Oracle sanitized one parameter twice (Copy/Paste-Error). Oracle assigned a new bug number (7520291) for this issue. ==> Such bugs are a indication of a bad Q/A. 2.) 2 weeks ago I found a way to bypass dbms_assert in many cases. Oracle is already informed. This means that many Oracle packages are vulnerable again and the bugfixes against SQL Injection are often useless. I hope Oracle will fix most of the bugs until end of 2008. Here my quote of the day... http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2006/05/02/215721/Exploitedflawtr acedasfarbackasOracle8.htm [...] "Oracle said that since its critical patch update is tested across product suites, the company is limited in the number of fixes it can include." [...] Cheers Alexander Kornbrust Red-Database-Security GmbH http://www.red-database-security.com
-----Original Message----- From: David Litchfield [mailto:davidl () ngssoftware com] Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 5:10 PM To: bugtraq () securityfocus com; full-disclosure () lists grok org uk; ntbugtraq () listserv ntbugtraq com Subject: Oracle, where are the patches??? A regular patch release cycle is a good thing. It allows system administrators to plan ahead and minimize server downtime. If I, as a system administrator, know that on the 18th of April 2006 a critical patch is going to be released I'll plan to stay late at work that night and start the assessment of the patch before I install it. All going well, I can
install
the patch and reboot the server all with a minimum amount of downtime. This should happen once a month or once a quarter - whatever interval my
vendor
has chosen. That's what good regular patches allow me to do. The
benefits
are absolutely clear. There are two major problems that can cause these benefits to
evaporate
into thin air, however. These are 1) Late Patches - If patches aren't delivered on the day they were supposed to be, then all my planning ahead has gone to waste and a new plan
needs
to be scheduled. 2) Re-issued Patches - If a vendor has to reissue a patch then I have
to
reinstall it - which costs me more money and more server downtime. The more times the patch is re-issued the more it eats into my budget. Since starting its regular quarterly patch release cycle Oracle has
been
guilty of both. Most recently, Oracle informed us that on the 18th of April 2006 that Critical Patch Update would be released. This date had been planned
for
over a year so why, on that date, were patches not ready for versions
10.2.0.2,
10.1.0.4, 10.1.0.3, 9.2.0.5, 8.1.7.4 and only partial patches for 10.1.0.5? Further, patches were only available for versions 9.2.0.7, 9.2.0.6 and 10.2.0.1 which means patches are available for only 33% of their
supported
versions - what about the poor people running the other 66%? These 66% were told that their patches would be available on the 1st
of
May 2006. In all fairness, the 1st of May was an "Estimated Time of
Arrival" -
but boy - was that estimate way off! The ETA has now been revised to
the
15th of May - a whole month after the supposed patch release day. What about Oracle's track record on patch re-issuance? Let's look -
the
January 2006 critical patch update was re-issued seven times, the
October
2005 CPU three times and the July 2005 CPU was re-issued nine times.
The
story is the same for earlier CPUs. Mary, Mary, quite contrary to what you'd have us believe about
Oracle's
security track record, it's not looking too good from my view. Cheers, David Litchfield NGSSoftware Ltd http://www.ngssoftware.com/ +44 (0) 208 401 0070
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Current thread:
- Oracle, where are the patches??? David Litchfield (May 02)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- RE: Oracle, where are the patches??? Kornbrust, Alexander (May 02)
- Re: RE: Oracle, where are the patches??? Cesar (May 03)