Security Blogs

A few weeks ago I did a sample blog post to use local LLM to create a PL/SQL package to encrypt and decrypt data in an Oracle database - AI Comparison for Oracle Security Code Generation . In that blog....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 19/08/26 At 12:42 PM

There are many components that are part of Database Vault. At the lowest level are factors that encapsulate the individual pieces of data that you may use in the rest of the set up. Then there are DV rules that....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 17/08/26 At 12:51 PM

I am using my local LLM using a mac book pro M5 64gb and running Ollama, open-webui via docker and the interface on my Windows laptop. I posted a blog recently Can local LLM AI generate the top 100 most....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 05/08/26 At 09:35 AM

As part of a previous investigation when looking at timestamps and dates for changes recorded to the database meta data I noticed in addition to the normal columns the SYS.USER$.SPARE6 column as it was populated for some users. I also....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 03/08/26 At 01:59 PM

One area I have not covered in previous blogs about Oracle Security and AI is sovereignty of that AI and of course in particular of the data. This means that the control of the hardware (compute and GPU) and the....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 29/07/26 At 02:20 PM

My day to day focus is helping customers secure data in their Oracle databases. As you will have seen from a small number of blogs here recently I have been writing a little about AI and in particular local LLMs....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 28/07/26 At 08:41 AM

I am working on a simple password audit tool for Oracle Apex and I have written a simple password cracker in PL/SQL to test if a password is found or not; i.e. is the password weak or not. To allow....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 23/07/26 At 12:01 PM

Sometimes in forensic analysis of an Oracle database it is necessary to understand how data is stored on disk. Actually we must understand that if we were to create our own database we might start with a file that holds....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 13/07/26 At 09:11 AM

If we have an Oracle database table with no timestamp can we still get a date/time stamp when something happened? For instance if a table has a date/time column then yes of course we can know when the records changed....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 25/06/26 At 10:53 AM

I have been involved with Oracle Database Vault recently with a deployment and I was asked how can someone view the database vault dictionary views when DV is installed. So, if we start with no DV enabled in our database....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 02/06/26 At 12:49 PM

Let us imagine that I have a 21c database that has Database Vault (DV) enabled and I have forgotten my Database Vault owner password. In my case C##DVO. This user as well as a backup (That I have also forgotten....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 28/05/26 At 02:17 PM

I am slightly late with this one as the event itself was on the 7th May 2026. The World Password Day 2026 is a day to try and highlight that passwords are weak. An article I saw on line said....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 11/05/26 At 12:37 PM

I did a presentation at the UKOUG conference at the East Side rooms in Birmingham at the end of 2025. The focus of this talk was to highlight the problem of securing data held in an Oracle database without using....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 05/05/26 At 11:25 AM

I have not had chance to write any detailed blogs of late as we have been very busy with paying work and also working on our software products as we released version 2025 of PFCLScan and version 2026 is very....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 20/04/26 At 09:34 AM

It is just slightly over 23 years since I started PeteFinnigan.com Limited to focus just on helping people secure data in Oracle databases. The company was incorporated on the 12th February 2003, so 23 years ago. I started the company....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 16/03/26 At 01:14 PM

I published a blog post back in 2024 where i used PFCLScan Version 2024 to scan various databases from 11g to 23c/ai. The blog is Compare the Database Security of Oracle Database 11g, 12c, 18c, 19c, 21c and 23c/ai and....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 25/02/26 At 09:59 AM

We have just released a new version of PFCLScan at the end of last week. This is version 2025. PFCLScan is our database security tool for the Oracle database. There are a lot of changes and fixes to this version....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 02/02/26 At 02:43 PM

I want to briefly discuss how we might detect that an attacker is trying to guess passwords and trying to connect to an Oracle database. One simple way that I have been aware of for many years, decades even is....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 15/01/26 At 03:08 PM

I want to wish a very happy New year for 2026 to all of our customers, web site visitors and all of our social media connections and likers and commenters. Thanks for all of your support over the years!! We....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 13/01/26 At 12:02 PM

PL/SQL packages can have a single BEGIN/EXCEPTION/END block as part of the package such as: create or replace package body block as procedure test is begin dbms_output.put_line('Hello from test()'); end; begin dbms_output.put_line('Hello from begin; end'); exception when others then dbms_output.put_line('BEGIN:['||sqlerrm||']')....[Read More]

Posted by Pete On 24/11/25 At 02:56 PM