Oracle Fixes 154 Flaws With Critical Patch Update

Oracle’s Critical Patch Update (CPU) for October 2015, released on Tuesday, resolves a total of 154 vulnerabilities affecting tens of the company’s products.

According to Oracle, the latest CPU patches security holes in Database Server, Fusion Middleware, Hyperion, Enterprise Manager, E-Business Suite, Supply Chain Products Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, Industry Applications, Java SE, Sun Systems, Pillar Axiom, VM VirtualBox, and MySQL.

The October 2015 CPU resolves eight vulnerabilities affecting Oracle Database, one of which has a CVSS score of 10 (CVE-2015-4863), which indicates that it can be exploited remotely without authentication.

As usual, many of the fixes are for Java SE. On this occasion, Oracle patched 25 issues, most of which can be exploited remotely without authentication. The company noted that 20 of the vulnerabilities only affect Java running in web browsers.

One critical issue, with a CVSS score of 10, was also patched in the Oracle Sun Systems Products Suite (CVE-2015-4915). The vulnerability affects the Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) service processor used by multiple products. Oracle has advised customers to apply the available patches and ensure that the ILOM interface is not accessible from the Web.

A total of 23 security bugs have been patched in Fusion Middleware, 16 of which are remotely exploitable without authentication. Industry Applications received 14 fixes, including nine for Communications Applications, and four for Retail Applications.

Five of the new fixes are for Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control, one is for Hyperion, twelve for E-Business Suite, eight for Supply Chain Products Suite, eight for PeopleSoft Enterprise, and one for Siebel CRM.

“Due to the severity of a number of vulnerabilities fixed in this Critical Patch Update, Oracle recommends that the necessary patches be applied as soon as possible,” Eric Maurice, director of Oracle's Software Security Assurance group, wrote in a blog post. “As of October 19th, the company’s security team didn’t have any indication that any of the most severe vulnerabilities fixed in this Critical Patch Update had been successfully exploited ‘in the wild’. However, it is our experience that malicious actors will often attempt to reverse-engineer fixes to develop exploit code in an attempt to attack organizations lagging behind in their patching effort.”