custom perl 5.8.9

You are knowingly running a Perl version that has been out of support for 16 years and has numerous unfixed security problems. Ouch! Depending on your jurisdiction, you could face all kinds of criminal and civil lawsuits if this piece of software gets exploited.

Instead of trying to keep that ancient piece of history on life support, you really should be looking into upgrading to a new version that gets security fixes. If the comeback is the usual "the customer/my IT department wont allow it", make sure the person blocking the upgrade gives that to you in writing (preferably signed)! You don't want to be personally held responsible for any monetary damages resulting from exploiting the weaknesses in your software (or possibly even go to prison, if push comes to shove).