Pete Finnigan's Oracle security weblog

Happy 21st Anniversary to my Oracle Security Blog

The 21st anniversary of this blog is coming up on the 20th September 2025. I started this blog on the 20th of September 2004 and it has been doing well ever since. I write almost exclusively on the subject of....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 10/09/25 At 11:55 AM

Can we Block EXECUTE ANY PROCEDURE for our API?

I did a five part series on the security of AUDSYS.AUD$UNIFIED and showed how it works at a functional level and how it might be secured by Oracle and how we might design a similar system using standard database license....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 09/09/25 At 08:56 AM

Testing a READONLY table and sometimes WRITE and DELETE

This is the next part of the series looking at the AUDSYS schema and AUD$UNIFIED table that Oracle has created and protected. In the first part we explored what AUDSYS and AUD$UNIFIED looks like in terms of security; in part....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 03/09/25 At 11:38 AM

Implement a Test System to Create a Readonly and Sometimes Insert / Delete Table

This is the next part (4th part) of the series exploring the AUDSYS schema and AUD$UNIFIED table that is READONLY with a lot of INSERTING and sometimes deleting. In the first part we explored the AUDSYS schema and the AUD$UNIFIED....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 26/08/25 At 08:54 AM

Build a readonly table like AUD$UNIFIED

In the two parts of this series on the security of AUDSYS.AUD$UNIFIED we looked at the main security features of the AUDSYS user and the AUD$UNIFIED table so that we could imagine using these same features ourselves. I have taught....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 19/08/25 At 12:03 PM

What is a Schema in Oracle?

In Oracle a user is the same as a schema - well not 100% true - so lets explain a bit. Firstly at a logical high level in Oracle a user is an account used by a real person to....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 14/08/25 At 08:38 AM

How does Oracle protect AUDSYS and AUD$UNIFIED

In the recent blog first part of this series on the security of AUDSYS.AUD$UNIFIED we looked at the main features of the AUDSYS user and its ability or design to stop anyone from randomly deleting or updating or doing DDL....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 12/08/25 At 12:52 PM

New PL/SQL Unwrapper Available

I was emailed by Cameron overnight to tell me that he has written a new unwrapper for PL/SQL. There have been no public unwrappers for 9ir2 and lower available on the internet for a long time. There were a number....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 07/08/25 At 10:00 AM