These fixes address flaws in its popular database servers and the products acquired through Sun, the Solaris OS and the MySQL database, Wolfgang Kandek, CTO at Qualys, maker of vulnerability management solutions, said in an email on Friday. Some of the patches affect multiple offerings.
Oracle's top priority is a fix for JRockit of Fusion Middleware, having earned a CVSS 2.0 score of 10 out of 10.
"A large number, 33, of the 88 patches are for the most critical class of vulnerabilities, remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities, which are software flaws that allow a remote attacker to exploit the targeted software without prior authentication," Kandek wrote. "Compare this to last quarter's release, which had 16 RCEs in 78 patches. Of the mainstream software lines, only MySQL and the Siebel Clinic product are not affected by the RCE-type vulnerabilities."
Oracle will not update Java on Tuesday. The company releases fixes for that software on a separate schedule, with the last coming in February. That previous release closed a number of critical flaws, in particular the highly publicized Flashback trojan affecting Mac OS X.
As usual, Oracle "strongly" recommends that customers apply the patches as soon as possible to thwart attacks.
"System administrators and users of all other software lines should be prepared to review the release with care next Tuesday," Kandek wrote.
