A security researcher released details of a critical flaw in Oracle's application and Web software on Wednesday, criticising the company for not cooperating with the security community and taking too long to fix software issues that threaten its customers. The flaw occurs in the way that a module in Oracle's Apache Web server distribution handles input and could give external attackers the ability to take control of a backend Oracle database through the Web server, said David Litchfield, principal researcher of database security firm Next-Generation Security Software, during a presentation at the Black Hat Federal security conference.

The database company should have fixed the issue in the latest critical patch update (CPU), but failed to do so, he said, adding that he believes the flaw is more significant than a privilege escalation issue fixed in less than three months by Oracle in the latest update.

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