The Oracle Critical Patch Update for October 2007 is scheduled for release Tuesday. Its 51 security fixes address issues across hundreds of Oracle products.

Oracle rates the severity of vulnerabilities using version 2 of the Common Vulnerability Scoring System. CVSS 2.0 ratings range from 1 to 10. The highest CVSS 2.0 base score of vulnerabilities across all products is 6.8, according to Oracle.

The update includes 27 security fixes for the Oracle database, Oracle's highest-profile product. According to Oracle, five of the vulnerabilities addressed could be remotely exploited over a network without a user name or password.

Oracle Application Server is slated for 11 security fixes, seven of which could be remotely exploited without authentication.

Eight security fixes are planned for the Oracle E-Business Suite. Only one of these holes may be remotely exploitable by a nonauthenticated user. The E-Business Suite contains the Oracle database, which had vulnerabilities addressed in this patch.

The Oracle Enterprise Manager gets two fixes in the update, both of which could be exploited by a nonauthenticated user.

Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise gets three fixes, none of which is remotely exploitable, and there are no new security fixes for Oracle's JD Edwards products.

Oracle follows the practice of patching quarterly. Its last patch, issued in July, dealt with 45 vulnerabilities.