Whilst looking over old Oracle bugs I discovered that a _fully_ _patched_ 8.1.7.4 Oracle server is still vulnerable to the old extproc flaw [http://www.ngssoftware.com/advisories/oraplsextproc.txt]; this flaw, when exploited, allows a remote attacker without a userID and password to take control of the server. Why, you may ask, has a supported product gone for so long without a patch for a serious problem that was made public 3 years and 10 months ago and reported to Oracle over 4 years ago? The answer, according to Alert 57 [http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/security/pdf/2003alert57.pdf], is that Oracle outright decided not to fix it. They claim "architectural constraints" are the problem even though they managed to overcome these same constraints on newer versions of Oracle. Users of 8.1.7.4 would do well to heed the advice offered in Alert 57 if they've not already done so. Cheers, David Litchfield http://www.databasesecurity.com/ http://www.ngssoftware.com/ More commentary on this available here http://www.databasesecurity.com/oracle-commentary.htm
