Oracle Flaw; A Power Finger to Point At; Tell Us Something We Don’t Know

Oracle Flaw

Oracle Corp. is warning customers about security holes in versions of its Oracle9i Database Server, says ComputerWorld. The vulnerability affects Oracle9i Database Server Release 2. Customers running Release 1 or earlier versions of the 9i Database Server are not affected, the company said.

A Power Finger to Point At

According to the The Wall Street Journal, American Electric Power Co. is one of the companies whose failed transmission lines may have triggered last week’s huge blackout. But now it comes out that the company has scrimped on some maintenance spending at its Ohio utilities, according to an internal report by the Ohio Public Utilities Commission. The report went on to say that AEP sometimes waited to trim trees until they had caused power failures. Some outages occurred when an outside contractor hired by AEP attempted to trim trees using helicopters equipped with giant cutting blades and ended up severing power lines.

Tell Us Something We Don’t Know

Viruses slow productivity! Federal agencies reported sluggish or stalled computer systems yesterday and record levels of e-mail interceptions as the spread of viruses that have tangled Internet traffic in the past 10 days slowed somewhat but remained at record levels, says The Washington Post. Internal computer systems at the Small Business Administration were down for two to three hours Thursday after agency computers were infected by the Welchia virus.