Hiding the db password

[John Gedeon]

I write/maintain web applications at my job, and several of them are in perl and use the perl dbi to connect to an oracle db. however, the passwords are displayed in the files and are accessible by many people outside of our group (since all the cgi files are on servers accessible by many people.) Is there a way to hide the passwords in a file so that perl can still connect to the db but now allow anyone but me and maybe my supervisor to see the password?
Thanks.
John Gedeon

<>< Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;"