IT professionals know that tech security is important in everything that they do. And that there are a lot of products, tools, innovations, and services that can help them.
Why then are there still oodles of data breaches, hacking incidents, and cybersecurity events happening every day? The simple and most obvious answer is that security is difficult to do.
For one, in the battle for tech security, the odds are for the attacker. Cybercriminals have the tools and infrastructure to carry out the attack. They can also bide their time to launch the perfect attack when it is convenient for them. Plus, they can work together, with a legion of attackers trying to penetrate into a business’ system.
On the other hand, most IT security teams are understaffed. They don’t always have the right tools, not enough resources, and they are often pressed for time. What’s more, they are surprised when an attack occurs and often scramble to contain the breach. Even preparing for an attack can be a struggle. Most IT teams need to work under a budget and that may limit the things they can do.
Help is available but it may not be enough
It’s true that most security vendors have been working hard. You now have security tools that use machine learning and artificial intelligence to do their jobs. But even the use of the latest technologies might not be enough.
Tech security needs professionals with a high level of skills. It is never enough that an IT staff is competent or knows the best practices. They have to be really good. For instance, to secure your database, you need a top-notch database administrator to work on it. Plus, he or she will need several database security consultants as well.
What’s more, IT is pretty dynamic. Your business probably has thousands of software and applications that you need to secure. Each one of these is written in a variety of programming languages and involves several technologies. And if you are in the cloud, you probably have applications scattered all over the place, on top of those that you host on-premises.
And more…
What’s more, the very tools you use to protect your systems and applications also need to be secure. Each product, software, service, and tool you use needs to be configured and set up properly.
As such, it’s simply not enough to have the best security software and tools. It also needs to be easy to use. It will be ideal for businesses to go for services and products that are inherently secure. You will need to work with a company that applies top-notch security from the ground up when they’re building their software.
For instance, Oracle has been coming up with offerings that help you adopt and automate best security practices easily.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for tech security
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is currently on its second iteration. The company took the lessons they learned from Gen 1 and built the latest OCI with security in mind. It has several technologies that make it secure.
- For one, isolated network virtualization makes it possible for you to isolate network instances. This will help prevent attackers from launching DDoS attacks, network surveillance, and lateral traversal.
- It also ensures that firmware on servers are restored to a clean state, so there is no malicious firmware left when servers are allocated.
- Oracle also has the most comprehensive array of tech security controls for databases. The company’s security tools range from preventive, detective, and administrative. It also has data-driven controls.
Data Safe
Even with all these tools, Oracle came up with Data Safe, which makes security even easier to implement. Data Safe brings together all these security controls in one console. What’s more, you don’t need to be the best DBA in town to use this feature.
Cloud Guard
Meanwhile, Cloud Guard will be able to gather data from a variety of OCI services and then analyze them. If it does detect threats and vulnerabilities, it will automatically correct the issue. This will mean that you don’t have to rely on a human analyst who will probably have several dozens or hundreds of security alerts already on his or her dashboard.
Maximum Security Zones
OCI also offers Maximum Security Zones, where you should keep your most confidential files. The MSZ has pre-defined security policies enforced, including disallowing servers to have public IP addresses, or having public storage buckets. When somebody makes a configuration that violates these policies, the system will not allow it. As such, you can stop worrying about misconfigurations.
Autonomous Linux
Autonomous Linux and operating system management is another area. This feature enables OCI to automatically apply patches as soon as they become available. This is a big deal considering that a majority of data breaches are carried out by exploiting vulnerabilities that exist because of unpatched systems. According to Voke Media, 80 percent of data breaches happen because of changes in the configuration or un-updated software.
Most of the time, systems are not patched because downtimes are a no-no. For those using Oracle Autonomous Linux, they are in luck because they can use K-Splice to roll out these updates with absolutely no downtime.
Database encryption and other technologies
Oracle has always allowed you to encrypt data at rest. The good news is that you can now also encrypt data in transit. Storage encryption is also available by default.
Tech security is hard, so you need all the help you can get
There is no denying that security is one of the most important and most challenging aspects of IT. No sweat when you work with an industry leader like Oracle.
The good news is that you can get Oracle services and products up and running with us assisting you in every way we can. Four Cornerstone will provide you with a team of seasoned Oracle experts and security consultants that will help keep you safe from the most persistent hackers and cybercriminals.
Call us today at +1 (817) 377-1144 and make first-rate security possible for your business.
Photo courtesy of Steve Wilson.
