One of the major sources of security threats come from a lack of skills on the part of IT personnel tasked to configure systems. In a recent Cybersecurity Skills Gap Survey, 68 percent of IT professionals said that the lack of skills on their team’s part has caused lapses in their security operations.
Looking into the data, it shows that the lack of skills resulted in:
- 60 percent to have negatively impacted their system’s incident detection and response
- 53 percent said the lack of expertise led to wrong security configurations
- More than four out of ten said they were not able to use the cybersecurity data they got into actionable intelligence
What if you were able to automatically configure your cloud systems? Oracle had that in mind when it came out with three cloud services in September 2019.
These services are
- Oracle Data Safe
- Oracle Cloud Guard
- Oracle Maximum Security Zones
Automatic Detection of and Response to Cybersecurity Threats
The three new services offered by Oracle gives you an easy way to do your security configurations and help you manage security all in one place. These services also help automate the enforcement of security policies and best practices.
These services operate in the background; silently enforcing cybersecurity policies and best practices, as it gathers data across your cloud systems.
They also detect misconfigurations, risks, and anomalous behavior. Then they take care of everything automatically, without needing you to do anything.
What’s more, you no longer have to design secure systems from scratch. You save all that work and still get protected from security holes resulting from misconfigured systems.
Oracle Data Safe: Automatically protects your customer data
Oracle Data Safe gives you a centralized control center where you can automatically secure your database. Because everything is in one place, you have improved visibility over your database, data, configuration, and users.
You get the security controls you need to monitor activity on your database and discover sensitive information. You can also mask your database to increase cybersecurity and minimize risks.
Oracle used their decades-long expertise and experience to build this service from scratch.
You can use Oracle Data Safe to secure services on Oracle Database Cloud, as well as Oracle Autonomous Database. In fact, Oracle Data Safe complements the security features you enjoy when using OAD, including self-patching and always-on encryption.
How does Data Safe keep you protected?
Database Cybersecurity and Compliance Assessments
Oracle Data Safe guarantees that your databases are properly configured for security. It can detect if there are deviations from best practices and then offers suggestions for correcting these.
Oracle Data Safe can help you stay compliant with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, the Security Technical Implementation Guide, and the Center for Internet Security Benchmarks.
Data Masking
Oracle Data Safe can mask the data you keep, while still making it usable for internal tests, analytics, and development.
Sensitive Data Discovery
Oracle Data Safe helps you know if you have sensitive data that you may not know about. Apart from helping you discover what types of data you have stored over the year, this service will also let you know where they are stored.
Oracle Data Safe can scour all columns and rows of all your databases. It can identify more than 125 types of sensitive data, as well. Plus, it’s fully customizable, so you can add data you consider to be sensitive in the search.
User Risk Assessment
Oracle Data Safe also monitors your users, privileges, and roles. You get a report on all of these details and even see which critical users need your attention.
This service also analyzes user profiles, including their login times and IP addresses. If a hacker is masquerading as a legit user, you can quickly determine and stop them from wreaking more havoc.
User Activity Auditing and Reporting
Oracle Data Safe can monitor user activity and alerts you when there are malicious or risky behaviors going on. These monitoring reports can be retained for a year, thus allowing you to go back and see what happened if there is a breach.
Maximum Security Zones: The Highest Levels of Protection
You can liken Maximum Security Zones to a bank’s vault. Clients can freely roam around the bank premises and transact with the tellers and other bank personnel. But come closing time, the entire area is off-limits to outsiders. However, the vault is secure all day long.
Oracle’s Maximum Security Zones are areas within your environment where security is always on, 24/7. These zones have automatic ways to prevent and detect intrusion. It can enforce security policies and controls, as well.
You can lock down resources to only secure configurations, prevent configuration changes, and block anomalous traffic.
You can activate Maximum Security Zones using any relevant and preconfigured security services, including Oracle Cloud Guard.
Oracle Cloud Guard: The seamless way to monitor your cloud environments
Oracle Cloud Guard gives you visibility across all of your cloud environments. You can protect all of your assets from one place.
Oracle Cloud Guard analyzes your data. It can also detect any threats and misconfigurations without you having to lift a finger. What’s more, Oracle Cloud Guard can also respond and kill security threats by itself.
This service collects data from all components of your cloud environment, including your application stack. It will check Oracle Data Safe, audit logs, and Oracle OS Management Service. It also works with any third-party products you are using.
With Oracle Cloud Guard running and monitoring your cloud deployments, it’s like having a dedicated IT personnel that can proactively sniff out anomalous activities. These malicious instances are then shut down.
Oracle Cloud Guard can also identify abnormal user behavior, and even automatically revoke user permissions.
Trust Four Cornerstone to Help You Get the Most out of your Oracle Investments
As Oracle is working hard to make your cloud deployments even more secure, you need to keep up with the new services and technologies. This is where Four Cornerstone can help.
Whether you need advice on which services and applications to use, or when you’re not sure you’re ready to deploy, Four Cornerstone will provide you with a team of Oracle experts who can ensure that you know what you’re doing.
Call us at +1 (817) 377-1144.
Photo courtesy of Oracle Blog.
