Oracle patches WebLogic flaw

Oracle has rushed out a patch for its WebLogic application server, two weeks after a Russian security researcher posted details of the vulnerability.

The flaw lies in WebLogic's Node Manager software, which is typically blocked at the firewall. However, if hacker is able to access Node Manager's administrative port, the results could be devastating, Oracle said. "A successful exploitation of this vulnerability may result in a full compromise of the targeted server on Windows. On other platforms (Unix, Linux), the attacker may gain access to the targeted server with the same privileges as the WebLogic server processes," Oracle wrote in a blog post detailing the issue.

Oracle issued its most-recent set of security patches on 12 January, but was apparently forced to rush out a WebLogic patch after security research firm Intevydis went public with details of the flaw on 23 January. The Russian company posted information on dozens of vulnerabilities during the month of January, in an effort to draw attention to the large number of server and database vulnerabilities that are not being patched.

An Oracle spokeswoman declined to comment on the patch. In its security alert, Oracle said it, "strongly recommends that the fix for this vulnerability be applied as soon as possible." The flaw affects versions 7 and higher of WebLogic.

Intevydis CEO Evgeny Legerov said his company is not following standard industry practice of notifying vendors of the bugs ahead of time because this "allows vendors to exploit security [researchers] to do QA work for free," according to a blog posting.

In an email Friday, Legerov confirmed that Oracle wasn't notified of this particular flaw ahead of time. "Since we have rather limited resources and we are not working for Oracle we are staying away from responsible disclosure path," he said.

"It is pretty serious bug," he explained, "a remote attacker could execute OS commands without any authentication."