How Valuable is Your Data to Your Business?
How well do you protect your database? You may think you are protecting it pretty well, but lets challenge that. Lets apply the same thinking to the database as you would to something more tangible. Precious Personal Possessions Imagine that you live in a gated community. Nobody can get in without passing the guard booth and giving […]
A Simple Way to Improve Data Security
Shrink Your Sensitive Data Footprint Protecting data is hard. Knowing for sure that you have identified and mitigated every vulnerability takes a lot of work and constant vigilance. The more servers you have to harden, the more databases you have to protect, the more work it is, and the more likely you will leave a hole […]
Is The Sensitive Data In Your Oracle Database Really Safe?
Discovering Sensitive Data Oracle has long had strong database encryption functionality and it keeps getting better. But they have been lacking a simple way to identify sensitive data in the database so you know what to encrypt, audit or protect via policies. I thought that might have improved recently with the release of a new database […]
Mind the Gap – Data Security and Teenage Drivers
New Security Assessment Tool — Why it matters? Oracle just released a database security assessment tool (DBSAT) that identifies security vulnerabilities in Oracle Databases. I will be writing about that tool in a coming article but the release got me thinking about how little many companies do to protect their data. Since this was prompted by […]
Oracle Virtual Private Database (VPD) — Granting Just Enough Access
Robust Access Control At The Database Layer Many Companies struggle with the difficult problem of providing fine grained access control at the database layer to sensitive data . We will discuss Oracle’s Virtual Private Database feature which provides a robust way of handling this problem for all types of database users. Security vs Effectiveness Securing access […]
Plugging the Database Audit Trail Gap
The Importance of Database Audit Trails and Security Assessments Database audit trails are critical tools for discovery, investigation, and prosecution of cyber crimes ranging from credit card theft to malicious activity by ex-employees to corporate espionage. And database security assessments are critical tools for preventing such activity. But an audit trail or a security assessment is only as good […]
You Need More than a Firewall to Protect Your Oracle Databases
Unless you’ve been in suspended animation for the past few years, you know that major government agencies and global enterprises are hacked with numbing regularity despite their best efforts to defend themselves. Whether from nation states, cybercriminals or disgruntled staff, your Oracle databases are vulnerable to similar attack. In most organizations, two-thirds of sensitive and […]
5 Reasons Not to Put Your Oracle Databases in the Cloud
As I blogged about recently, Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) is an important option for many Oracle database customers. But “data in the cloud” is not right for every business, and there are important issues to be aware of as you consider how or if to leverage DBaaS. Following are five concerns that might limit your use of […]
Is Database-as-a-Service Right for Your Company?
According to recent research, Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) is projected to grow at almost 90% year over year, to about $2 billion by 2016. The key drivers, as you might expect, are costs and time saved. From SMBs to multinationals, organizations are moving Oracle databases to the cloud in droves. Actually, there are two ways to run […]
Anatomy of a Database Security Assessment
Data security is not a “set it and forget it” condition—it’s highly dynamic, changing as your environment evolves, new threats appear and new vulnerabilities are introduced. And as the recent rash of high-profile breaches in retail databases illustrate, securing your databases is at least as important as securing other parts of your infrastructure. The end […]
