Oracle password system comes under fire

Attackers could easily uncover Oracle database users' passwords because of a weak protection mechanism, putting corporate data at risk of exposure, experts have warned.

In the latest critique of Oracle's security practices, experts are calling on the software maker to improve the mechanism used to secure passwords for database users. Researchers say they have found a way to recover the plain text password from even very strong, well-written Oracle database passwords within minutes.

The technique Oracle uses to store and encrypt user passwords doesn't provide sufficient security, said Joshua Wright of the SANS Institute and Carlos Sid of Royal Holloway college, University of London. Wright gave a presentation on the matter Wednesday at the SANS Network Security conference in Los Angeles.

In the presentation, Wright discussed how passwords are encrypted before being stored in Oracle databases and presented a tool he wrote to uncover passwords, according to a SANS statement. A paper by Wright and Cid is available on the SANS Web site. (Download PDF.)

Wright and Cid identified several vulnerabilities, including a weak hashing mechanism and a lack of case preservation--all passwords are converted to uppercase characters before calculating the hash.

"By exploiting these weaknesses, an adversary with limited resources can mount an attack that would reveal the plain text password from the hash for a known user," Wright and Cid wrote in their paper.

The researchers informed Oracle about their findings in July, but subsequent requests for a response from Oracle have gone unanswered, according to SANS. Oracle also did not respond to a request for comment from CNET News.com.

Oracle users can protect their systems by requiring strong passwords and assigning limited user rights, the researchers said. Users are also encouraged to tell Oracle that it should improve password protection, they wrote.

Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle is increasingly coming under fire for its security practices. Security researchers have taken the company to task for being slow in fixing security vulnerabilities and providing faulty patches when it does update its software.

So much for the unbreakable claim

Hah! So much for Mary Ann Davidson's criticisms of security researchers. How can you go mouthing off at others for finding flaws in your software, when this is the kind of software you're producing?

Bahh!

So much for the unbreakable claim

Hah! So much for Mary Ann Davidson's criticisms of security researchers. How can you go mouthing off at others for finding flaws in your software, when this is the kind of software you're producing?

Bahh!

[mcepat]

ORACLE IS UNBREAKABLE

maybe expensive but apparently not breakable

[mcepat]

ORACLE IS UNBREAKABLE

maybe expensive but apparently not breakable

[BogusName]

Oracle Getting Slammed

Wow, i don't know if CNET has it in for Oracle or what. I bet if you look at the top app vendors you will see similar vulnerabilities.

[BogusName]

Oracle Getting Slammed

Wow, i don't know if CNET has it in for Oracle or what. I bet if you look at the top app vendors you will see similar vulnerabilities.

[BogusName]

Tell me about it

I've got to install 9 patches.

I bet the majority simply ignore these CPUs.

[BogusName]

Tell me about it

I've got to install 9 patches.

I bet the majority simply ignore these CPUs.