Oracle issues largest patch bundle ever, fixing 276 security flaws

Oracle has released a new quarterly batch of security updates for more than 80 products from its software portfolio, fixing 276 vulnerabilities.

This is the largest Oracle Critical Patch Update (CPU) to date. The average number of flaws fixed per Oracle update last year was 161, according to security vendor Qualys. Furthermore, out of the 276 security flaws fixed in this update, 159 can be exploited remotely without authentication.

At the top of the priority list should be the Java patches, which address 13 new vulnerabilities. That's because Java is used in a lot of applications and is installed on a large number of systems.

"Customers really do need to apply these Java CPU patches as soon as possible,"  said John Matthew Holt, the CTO of application security firm Waratek, via email. Among the patches that require urgent attention are those for the HotSpot Java virtual machine for desktops and servers, which received high CVSS (Common Vulnerabilities Scoring System) scores, Holt noted.

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