Oracle Plans To Patch 46 Vulnerabilities Next WeekOracle Plans To Patch 46 Vulnerabilities Next Week

Oracle announced that next Tuesday it will release patches for 46 vulnerabilities across its product lines.

The company prereleased information on its quarterly Critical Patch Update, which will cover bugs in Oracle's flagship database, its application server, Collaboration Suite, E-Business Suite, Enterprise Manager, and its PeopleSoft enterprise software.

Oracle gives its most severe security rating to at least one flaw in the PeopleSoft enterprise software. While Oracle doesn't give vulnerabilities a "critical" or "important" rating, like Microsoft does, the database and server company uses the Common Vulnerability Scoring System, which gives bugs a 0 to 10 ranking, with 10 being the most severe. According to an Oracle spokesman, the PeopleSoft bug scored a 4.8, while at least one bug in the Oracle E-Business Suite received a 4.7, and the highest score among the database bugs was 4.2.

The Oracle database contains 20 of the 46 flaws being fixed next Tuesday, according to the prerelease announcement. Two of the 20 vulnerabilities may enable a hacker to remotely exploit them without the need for a user name and password. Oracle noted that none of the fixes is applicable to Oracle database client-only installations, but only to systems that have the database itself installed.

The advisory also noted that next week's patches will fix 14 vulnerabilities in Oracle's E-Business Suite. Six of the flaws also may be remotely exploitable without authentication.

Four vulnerabilities will be fixed in Oracle's application server. Three of them may be remotely exploitable without authentication, while two are applicable to client-only installations. The advisory noted that the application server products that are bundled with the Oracle database are affected by the Oracle database vulnerabilities being fixed in next week's Critical Patch Update.

Oracle's major patch release will come a week after Microsoft's monthly Patch Tuesday release, which was issued this past Tuesday. Microsoft's release fixed 11 vulnerabilities.