Running Oracle? Get Ready for Almost 300 Patches

Oracle has pushed quarterly security updates for its products. These updates are targeting a record 297 vulnerabilities affecting Oracle products.

According to Sophos, "The latest Critical Update Patch contains vulnerabilities spanning dozens of products, including its Fusion Middleware product set, which received 53 new security fixes overall – 42 of them for vulnerabilities that could, in theory, be exploited remotely over a network with no user credentials."

The Oracle Communications Applications set was among products to receive the most fixes – 26 security fixes, out of which 19 were remotely exploitable.

297 might seem like a big number, but looking at the vast product portfolio and quarterly nature of these updates, this number is not that big.

However, if you are running any of the Oracle products, it is time to run these updates.

Microsoft Acquired RTOS Company

Microsoft has acquired Express Logic, the maker of ThreadX, a real-time operating system (RTOS) for embedded devices.

Microsoft already owns Linux-based Azure Sphere, an operating system designed for IoT/Edge devices. However, by acquiring Express Logic, the company hopes to expand its support for microcontroller unit (MCU) devices running native RTOS systems.

ThreadX requires a 2KB instruction area and 1KB of RAM for its minimal footprint. It supports a wide range of 32/64-bit microprocessors including ARM, Cypress (RISC-V) and Xilinx, to name a few.

"While we recommend Azure Sphere for customers' most secured connections to the cloud, where Azure Sphere isn't possible in highly constrained devices, we recommend Express Logic's ThreadX RTOS over other RTOS options in the industry because of its additional certifications and out-of-the-box connectivity to Azure IoT Hub," said Sam George, Microsoft's director of Azure IoT in a blog post.

Express Logic has over 6.2 billion deployments in the world. Microsoft has committed to invest $5 billion in the IoT space by 2022, and this acquisition is part of that strategy.