15. Command Rule Flexibility Alter Database Alter Database Alter Table Alter Function Audit Alter Tablespace Alter Package Body Alter Procedure Alter Profile Alter Session Alter System Alter Synonym Alter Table Alter Trigger Alter User Password Alter Tablespace Alter View Change Password Connect Comment Create Function Create Index Create Package Create Database Link Create Procedure Create Role Create Package Body Create User Create View Create Table Grant Insert Noaudit Rename Lock Table Create Tablespace Create Trigger Truncate Table Update Insert Delete Execute Select
Welcome, today I’d like to present an overview of the latest security product from Oracle – Database Vault. We announced this new product in late April at the huge Oracle user group conference called Collaborate 06 in Nashville, TN. You may have seen some press releases for Oracle and our partners around this exciting new product.
Database Vault is designed to address what customers have told us are some of their most pressing security related business problems. At Oracle Headquarters in California, we frequently get the opportunity to talk to customers from around the world and virtually every industry imaginable and these are business problems seem to resonate with virtually every customer. I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrase “regulatory compliance”, who hasn’t, it’s certainly being used a lot. I think one of the biggest benefits of regulatory compliance has been awareness, it’s really forced customers to take a long hard look at their business practices. Two of the common themes in many regulations are strong internal controls and separation of duty. Database Vault provides the technology to address these two security problems. In addition, customers are much more concerned about the internal threat today. I don’t mean to say that everyone’s DBA is up to no good, but rather customers are looking for preventative measures to put in place. They want the ability to enforce operational policies on who, when and where data can be accessed, Another common security problem is the powerful DBA. Most applications out there today were not designed with the principle of least privilege – meaning that the application owner only has the minimum privileges necessary. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. Database Vault provides the ability to restrict the powerful application owners and DBA which reside in a consolidated database environment.
Earlier we showed how a command rule can be associated with the Alter System command. Here’s a list of some of the other commands which can have rules associated. As you can see the list is quite extensive.
In addition, to Realms, Database Vault also delivers Command Rules and Multi-Factor Authorization. Command Rules provide the ability to instruct the database to evaluate conditions prior to allowing a database command to execute. Combined with Multi-Factor authorization, this provides an extremely powerful tool to limit and restrict access to databases and applications. Let’s take another example. Here I’m showing a database with a single application and the DBA. One of the common problems customers have faced from a compliance perspective is unauthorized activity in the database. This may mean that additional database accounts or application tables have been created. This can raise alarms with auditors because it can point toward lax internal controls. Using a command rule, Database Vault gives the ability to control the conditions under which a command is allowed to execute. For example, a command rule can be associated with the database “Alter System….” command. Perhaps your policy states that all ‘alter system’ commands have to be executed from a connection originating from the server hosting the database. The command rule can check the IP address and reject the command. So the rule based on IP address blocks the action. Perhaps a powerful application DBA creates a new table, command rules combined with multi-factor authorization can block this action. In summary, command rules and multi-factor provide the flexibility to meet operational security requirements.
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