Oracle University Podcast

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Database Security: Part 1 Aug 06, 2024

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Join hosts Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham, along with Senior Principal Database & Security Instructor Ron Soltani, as they dive into the critical topic of database security. In the first of a two-part series on database security in Oracle Database 23ai, they discuss the importance of protecting data against external and internal threats, common security risks like phishing and SQL injection, and the principle of least privilege. Oracle MyLearn: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/oracle-database-23ai-new-features-for-administrators/137192/207062 Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ X: https://twitter.com/Oracle_Edu Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode. -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started! 00:26 Nikita: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast. I'm Nikita Abraham, Principal Technical Editor with Oracle University, and joining me is Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs. Lois: Hi there! In case you missed last week's episode, we've begun a new season of the podcast, talking about all the new features in Oracle Database 23ai. We covered blockchain tables and new features, and today's episode is going to be one of two that will be dedicated to database security. Nikita: Right, Lois. So, in Part 1, we want to set the scene, so to speak, by looking at an overview of database security so that when we discuss some of the new features, we'll know exactly where they actually fit into the process. Joining us for these two episodes is Ron Soltani. Ron is a Senior Principal Database & Security Instructor with Oracle University. 01:16 Lois: Hi Ron! Thanks for being with us today. To start off, let's discuss the importance of database security. Why is database security so critical today? Ron: Security requirements, describes the need for keeping things private and make sure that we protect against threat, against data destruction. We also have, today, data that is global. Therefore, there is consolidation of the data. There is globalization. There is data sourcing, locational, where the data is actually located, rules opposed by different governments, and guidelines that enforce a certain type of security administration on the data. And finally, there are many different companies or organizations that actually come up with either guidelines or rules that must be followed for security aspect that we must set up and build compliance. 02:24 Nikita: Ron, what are some of the common security risks that databases face? Ron: Security risk can include external threats that could be unauthorized users trying to use phishing, get privileged user information, and get in as a privileged user to do whatever damage they want. Denial-of-service attack, one of the most common attacks out there where the attackers just create or attack the components, like a listener, for example, in a database, and cause a situation where the listener can no longer establish connection to the database. So now no client can connect to the database to get data, which is that denial-of-service attacks. Having unauthorized access to the data-- so again, this is generally done through phishing or sometimes even SQL injection. SQL injection also allows you to insert SQL statement in the application where it's not expected, where it can then convert into an executable in the database and then have unwanted data returned for the user. 03:42 Nikita: Sorry, can you explain that? Ron: For example, when you go to Google, you want to run a search. They expect you to say, meaning of a particular word. Now, what if I knew the structure of the data organization in Google? And instead of just putting in meaning of whatever word, I actually plug in a SQL statement that then passed along to the Google system to be executed. And then that SQL, if the components and everything exist and within the privileges of what is being executed, could expose some information to me. So that's the idea with being able to perform that type of operation. 04:24 Lois: Ok. So, those are external threats. But, could you also have internal threats? Ron: Internal threat could be abused by someone who is privileged, could be sabotage of the system and the data. It could be data complexity that creates an environment where data is not properly being secured and even accidental damage. It's a security issue. And then finally, if there is a damage, we do need to be able to perform recovery. So we create backups and data access in those. Therefore, those recovery information must be properly secured. And finally, the omission, being able to block access or cause issues with the data. Then having external threats coming in through the internal abuse, so internal abuse could actually open door to allow external threats to get in. Now, the final type of security risk could be coming in from partners who have privilege to be able to load or access and get data. For example, I may sell a particular product. But the product description is actually coming from the product distributor. 05:47 Nikita: Yeah, so they have access to push that product information into your system. So, what are the typical points of attack for a database? I'm familiar with phishing. Ron: People send you emails or do something to be able to get information from the pieces and things that come back. For example, this is one of the reason for many operation. We would return false error messages. Like in Oracle database, if you don't have privilege on the table and you try to select it, we tell you a table or a view does not exist. So this way, you don't know if it's a table, you don't know if it's a view. And as far as you know, it doesn't exist. So the name you have does not correspond to any particular data. 06:32 Nikita: That's clever! Ron: If we would tell you don't have privilege, now you know the name of this table exists. So now I just got to find a way of hacking the table. So this is basically phishing means, extracting different pieces of information through different channels, being able to put them together. Then in database, we have some privilege known accounts that if not protected can be a vulnerable access. The back doors into the database. For example, somebody being able to get to the operating system DBA group, and then connect to the database without user ID and password. That's why we have to protect every layer. Any debug codes that may be available that could reference how the operation of the system is actually going. Creating cross-scripting between the different data and then operations that goes on. And as we talked about, SQL injection. 07:28 Lois: Can you dive a little deeper into SQL injection, Ron? Ron: With SQL injection, you kind of have to understand that, in general, SQL injection means somebody, like we said, knows the structure of something, knows the structure of the way the application is operating, and then be able to inject a SQL statement where they would generally put a condition or pass some parameters or some information to the application. So, then that SQL statement becomes part of that statement and submitted to the database. Now, we need to understand SQL injection is not about the person, is not about generally your overall configuration of the database. The most important aspect of SQL injection is about the session that is actually doing the work. For example, if I am a DBA and I am going to collect statistics for a table. If I connect a SYS DBA to collect that statistics and somebody hacks into my session and inject a SQL drop database. Database gone, because the session has SYS DBA privilege. But if I have a user that only has create session privilege and execute a script. And in this script, I write the statement to collect statistics and I give that script only the privilege to collect stats. So now I can connect as that user with that minimal privilege, just execute the script. So now anyone inject any SQL into the session, that will never be executed because the session has no privilege. So this is the important of SQL injection for us to understand that the importance is what happens at the session level. And many of the security element we will see, like read-only session, hybrid read-only PDB and things like that are related into this type of SQL injection or abuse. 09:30 Lois: Yeah, we are looking forward to talking through those new features in the next episode. Ron: So the common vulnerabilities can be exploited, and also any of the users that are part of the operations that can be set up into the string and supplied into middle of statements and things like that. 09:56 Did you know that Oracle University offers free courses on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure? You'll find training on everything from cloud computing, database, and security, artificial intelligence and machine learning, all free to subscribers. So, what are you waiting for? Pick a topic, leverage the Oracle University Learning Community to ask questions, and then sit for your certification. Visit www.mylearn.oracle.com to get started. 10:25 Nikita: Welcome back! One of the concepts I wanted to ask you about, Ron, is the principle of least privilege. Can you explain what it really means? Ron: Principles of least privilege, again, means the work that needs to be done has to have minimal privilege. 10:40 Nikita: But, we've always thought about that, right? Giving a user minimal privileges… Ron: Well, back in the old days, we used to execute everything as a schema owner. Therefore, we had privilege on all the data. Then we said, OK, let's create schema users and only give them like a read privilege or this privilege. So they can only do the type of work they need to do, which is fine. But at the same time, that can be very complex. Now I need a lot of different users and whatnot. So when it comes to principles of least privilege, this is generally about only installing whatever software that is required. Only enable or turn on whatever machines and segments that is going to be used. Have proper operating system level users and privileges configured for all of the software that is installed at the operating system level. Have proper administrator account that are properly maintained. Set up privilege user account for each operation. So when we do maintenance and database administration, we are not creating very high-level privileged session. That's why some of the differences privileges was created in database 12 and up, like Sys backup, Sys DG, Sys RAC. So you don't inherit the privilege as Sys DBA to actually do the work. You only have privileges for what you need. And, of course, limit the user's access to particular object and things that they need to do. However, as I mentioned, this is not just about the user level. This is also about the session level. If I'm going to do maintenance and I'm connecting as a schema owner, somebody inject a SQL drop table, table gone. So that's why it is very important for us to be able to have control over how sessions can also operate within the database. 12:34 Lois: Right, so, what about the strategy of defense in depth? Ron: Defense in depth. That means we have to strengthen and apply security at every level, whether it being at the securities applied at the operating system in the database, in the application, in the network. So we have to have policies defining all the different security levels. Most important, train users. So no mistakable damages. Harden every component, including the operating system. Set up proper firewalls. Set up proper network security, like use of the Oracle firewall that protects against unwanted SQL statements. We can compare SQL statement to a whitelist of acceptable statements. And then other database security features like VPD, the auditing as we will talk about, and other components to give you an overall very secure environment. 13:35 Nikita: Ron, what are the fundamental aspects of managing security only within the database… not including the operating system or the application? Ron: So first, we have to have confidentiality. Confidentiality means that we need to make sure that all of the data is properly secured at a data level, whether it be both at the storage level, in the database for data usage, and we have many different ways of doing confidentiality management. Number one, properly creating users, maintaining users with the proper password through proper authentication. And then setting up authorization that privileges may not be enough because if I give you select privilege, you can see every column, every row. So I may need row level security, data redaction, data masking for duplication, and other mechanism to help us manage even subset of data for that particular security. 14:35 Lois: Ok… so that's confidentiality. What's next? Ron: Data integrity means that we need to make sure that data is not destroyed, whether it being addressed in the database, in memory, in data file, in backup, in exports, or during transmission in the network. So we usually apply encryption and check-summing not only to protect the data, but also to validate, make sure it's not corrupted. Next data availability, which means today, especially, we are 24/7 operation. And remember we talked about denial of service attack on a database. That usually attacks on the listener, because if the listener is crashed, nobody can connect. We have to then utilize available tools and components like RAC to have multiple instances in case a particular host crashes. And I lose a particular instance. Data Guard in case my storage and a whole database crashes. The PDB and real-time PDB management with duplication, having a PDB standbys that are maintained and managed behind the scene. Using PDB snapshots, which are point in time. Preserve data that I can use it for restoring data at those particular point in time. Backup recovery through RMAN or other backup recovery processes. So in case data is damaged, I can restore it and recover it. And finally, auditing. Auditing historically was always known as after effect. 16:09 Nikita: That's what I was wondering… You only see what's going on after something happens, right? Ron: It also can be a deterrent when people know they are being audited, they're more careful, don't make mistakes. Try not to, of course, do anything you get caught. And today, this auditing can also be set up in a way that it cannot only catch what is going on. It can actually help us better secure data and have much better responses. Now the problem with auditing has always been the overhead. That's why the unified audits that provides us with much less overhead for management can give us an extreme detailed audits. And then the new features allows us to even more reduce the amount of audits that are generated by only auditing at the column level and better protection for those audits. By the way, in the older days, most auditing was done at the app, because we never knew who the end user the app is. But today with being able to have Active Directory mapped into the database and information passed between the two, all audits can actually come back centrally to the database. 17:21 Lois: So, to wrap up today's conversation, Ron, can you just summarize database security for us? All the things we need to think about. Ron: So database security starts with making sure, number one, our network is…

Full show notes at the publisher

Blockchain Tables Jul 30, 2024

Show notes

In this episode of the Oracle University Podcast, hosts Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham kick off a new season with a deep dive into the latest features of Oracle Database 23ai. Joined by Bill Millar, a Senior Principal Database & MySQL Instructor, they explore the new enhancements to blockchain tables, such as row versions, user chains, delegate signer, and countersignature. So, if you're curious about harnessing the power of blockchain tables for your database needs, this is the perfect episode for you! Oracle MyLearn: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/oracle-database-23ai-new-features-for-administrators/137192/207062 Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ X: https://twitter.com/Oracle_Edu Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode. -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started! 00:26 Lois: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast. I'm Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs with Oracle University, and with me is Nikita Abraham, Principal Technical Editor. Nikita: Hi everyone! Thank you for joining us as we begin a new season of the podcast. For the next few weeks, we're going to explore all the new features in Oracle Database 23ai, previously known as 23c. These episodes will be great for you if you're a database administrator, a developer, or even a database architect. Lois: Right Niki, and while anyone can listen to the podcast, you're probably going to get the most out of this season if you have prior knowledge or experience with the previous versions of Oracle Database and have used SQL to manage Oracle Databases. Throughout this season, we'll discuss new features in database availability, architecture, manageability, performance, and security. 01:21 Nikita: Exactly. Today, we're diving into the world of blockchain tables and the new features introduced. First, we'll try to get an overview of blockchain tables that were introduced in 21c. Then, we'll discuss the new features in 23ai, including row versions, user chains, delegate signer, and countersignature. Lois: So, let's get started. To take us through all this, we are joined today by Bill Millar. Bill is a Senior Principal Database & MySQL Instructor with Oracle University. Hi Bill! Thanks for joining us. To begin, what is a blockchain table? 01:59 Bill: Well, a blockchain table provides the means for recording transactions where only insert operations are allowed. And rows are protected or restricted based on time as defined when the table is created. This makes the rows tamper-resistant with their chaining algorithms. 02:16 Nikita: Bill, take us through some common attributes of a blockchain table. Bill: They are append only, protects the current data in the table. Made tamper-resistant with their hashing algorithm. And optionally, they can be digitally signed. However, they are mandatory in blockchain platform transactions. Transaction logs, audit trails, compliance information, they can most benefit from using blockchain tables. 02:44 Lois: Bill, let's talk for a minute about the blockchain tables being tamper-resistant. What makes a blockchain table tamper-proof? Bill: Well, with the insert only tables, each row is going to be chained to the previous row, except the first row. There's nothing to change it to. So once a row is added, it changes it to the previous row, to the previous row. Rows are linked when the transaction commits. We don't link them beforehand because you might roll back. 03:13 Nikita: Do we have some considerations or guidelines for managing blockchain tables? Bill: One, they may be partitioned. You can specify retention at a table level, the blockchain table itself. You can use the no drop clause. And you can also define it blockchain tables at the row level when you create that blockchain table. Defining a retention period for the table itself or a retention period for the rows. 03:41 Nikita: And are there any restrictions when using blockchain tables? Bill: There are several restrictions for the blockchain table. Some of them are… There are some data types that are not supported. The row ID, long, timestamp with time zone, and so forth. And there are other operations not allowed. A few of them are updating rows, merging rows, truncating, dropping them partitions. Converting a regular table to a blockchain table or vice versa. So you do want to make sure that you understand the restrictions if you decide that you're going to use a blockchain table. There are some things you can alter in a blockchain table. One is you can modify a retention period. It cannot be reduced. However, you can make it longer. 04:30 Lois: Ok, I think I've got it. So, coming to the 23ai features, what's new with blockchain tables? Could you give us a brief overview of them before we dive into each one? Bill: So we have the user chain, just a chain of rows based off to three user-defined columns. Previously, the system defined the chain. The row versions…it allows me to have multiple historical views of a row that's going to be-- that is maintained with the blockchain table. We have the log history. The flashback data archive history tables are now blockchain tables. And there's also a countersignature. So you can request the time of signing a row that it has a signature for that. That signature metadata is going to be stored within the row, within some hidden columns. And then you can also have a delegate signer. It's an alternate to the user who is allowed to sign rows inserted by that primary user. 05:31 Nikita: What are some advantages of using blockchain tables? Bill: There are benefits of using the blockchain tables in transparent from fraud protection and users don't know as they're inserting the data. You can detect it by verifying the rows in the blockchain table. They are not part of the database itself. It can be more secure when you're validating them. And it is easier than distributed blockchains where multiple blockchains with identical data is being maintained across multiple different platforms. 06:03 Lois: And what about benefits specifically from the 23ai new features? Bill: We have allowed increased flexibility. Just the user-defined itself, instead of having it just rely on the system-defined. It can guarantee row versioning. The blockchain log history to record and protect the changes. The counter signature, along with the digital signature, can help protect it even more. So you must specify a version. There is no default version, so you must specify whether either it's going to be version 1 or version 2 and create the table. Version 1 is the version from 21c. You have to specify version 2 if you're going to take advantage of some of the new features in 23c. And with these two different versions, it does reduce the number of columns that you are going to have accessible. Version 1 uses 20 additional columns to maintain that blockchain information, whereas a version 2 blockchain table is going to use 40 additional columns. So that reduces the number of columns that you can use by 40. Even though version 2 does use more columns for the hidden information, it does have its benefit. It does allow you to add, drop columns. You can drop partitions with version 2. You have distributed transactions. And you can also use with replication, such as Oracle Golden Gate and Active Data Guard. 07:32 Nikita: Are there restrictions when it comes to using blockchain tables? Bill: Again, make sure that you understand the requirements of your tables when determining if blockchain table is going to be appropriate for your application or not. XMLTypes are not supported. Can't truncate. Doesn't work with sharded tables. Can't work with different policies such as the automatic data optimization, virtual private database, label security. Cannot use the DBMS_REDEFINITION package on a blockchain table. 08:10 Are you planning to become an Oracle Certified Professional this year? Whether you're a seasoned IT pro or just starting your career, getting certified can give you a significant boost. And don't worry, we've got your back! Join us at one of our cert prep live events in the Oracle University Learning Community. You'll get insider tips from seasoned experts and learn from other professionals' experiences. Plus, once you've earned your certification, you'll become part of our exclusive forum for Oracle-certified users. So, what are you waiting for? Head over to www.mylearn.oracle.com and create an account to jump-start your journey towards certification today! 08:53 Nikita: Welcome back! Let's get into each of those 23ai new features, Bill. What can you tell us about the row versions feature? Bill: With the row version option, it allows you to have multiple historic views of a row corresponding to a set of user-defined columns. Previously, only the system would define the columns. When you create these, it automatically creates a view to allow you to view information about that blockchain table with the row version. The system is going to create the view with the same columns. However, the name of that view, it's going to take whatever that table name that you create and it's going to append the _Las$ onto it for that. And it has not only the same columns of your table, but it also has additional columns in there. One of them be that last row version. This is going to allow you to see, what is the latest version of that row? In order to use the row versions, you must specify with the row version clause when you create the table. It is also supported with or without primary key. The primary key column must not be identical to the set of the row version column. There are some restrictions, though. So you must specify-- you must specify a row version name with it. And remember, three columns is the maximum. You don't have to have three. You can have one, two, or three. And then the fields that are restricted to the types-- number, char, varchar, and raw. And it cannot be used with version 1 blockchain tables, meaning blockchain tables came out in 21C. So if you have 21C, you cannot create it. It's a 23C feature. That's why that is like that. So you're going to specify with the row version. And then you're going to give it that row version name because that is required. And then up to three different columns that you want to use. 10:58 Lois: What about user chains? How do they enhance blockchain tables? Bill: So with the user chains, previously again, only the system chains were available. It randomly selected how to change the tables, what columns to chain it with. Well now a user chain can be defined by the end user. And set up one, two, or three. Well, how many rows do you want to chain? Have that chain apply to. Again, the column types that we just talked about that are only supported. The number of the char, varchar, and raw. But with the user chains and you being able to identify the columns, it adds that additional flexibility to allow you to have this tamper-resistant table to be used by your applications. So to create that blockchain table, user chain is defined when you create the table. So you're going to define when you create the table what is going to be that chain for that. When you do create that, any rows that have the same change values will be grouped together. For example, let's say a banking application. I have an account. I make deposits. I make withdrawals. I do balance inquiries because that's all based off of that same field, that account, it'll group those together within the chain. It does apply the hashing value to the columns that are stored within that chain. 12:27 Lois: Bill, can you explain the blockchain table delegate signer feature? Bill: What it is, optionally, a signature that can be applied to provide additional security against tampering for that. However, if you do use it, it does require a digital certificate when adding a signature to a row. Signatures are validated using that digital certificate and any signature algorithm for that. The delegate is an alternate. And it can be used instead of addition to just a user signature. So when I am the user, I create a row, it adds my signature, I can add my certificate to it or now I can have a delegate to do that for me. So it can be digitally signed by the delegate. It can be signed by the delegate instead of the user itself. So that way, it's verified. Yes, that is good. Well, maybe users are not able to sign the rows they created, but they trust the delegate. 13:32 Nikita: And the last new feature to discuss is a blockchain table countersignature. Bill: A countersignature is going to provide additional guarantees that, hey, this data has been securely stored within our table itself. You can request a countersignature. It is requested at the time of signing a row. So what it's going to do is it's going to record that signature metadata in that row and the counting signature in the signed bytes that can be returned to the caller to verify, yes, that I might want to retrieve that information to use in another source for that. So we can use that. As we said here, that candidate signature and the sign bytes, we might put it in another data store, might put it in our Oracle blockchain platform. For this non-repudiation purposes, basically what that means is that, hey, it's proof of the origin, the authenticity of it, the integrity of that data. Well, I want to pass that information to something else, another application or source or whatever. So yes, this is trusted information for that. So it gives that additional security. So it assures that the sender that their message was delivered plus gives proof of that sender's identity. Countersignatures are saved in the blockchain table, that happens to be a blockchain table itself. The countersignature is computed using the bytes, using that hashing algorithm. It's going to include that end user signature, the delegate, or both. Remember, the end user can sign, a delicate can, or it can use both of that information for that. Even though we do save that information in the blockchain table, we recommend if you're going to use this, you might want to store that information outside of the database for those non-repudiation purposes. 15:37 Lois: Thank you so much, Bill, for taking us though all these updates. We look forward to having you back soon to talk us through some more of these new features. Nikita: To learn more about blockchain tables, visit mylearn.oracle.com and search for the Oracle Database 23ai: New Features for Administrators course. Join us next week for a discussion on some more Oracle Database 23ai new features. Until then, this is Nikita Abraham… Lois: And Lois Houston signing off! 16:06 That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We'd also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.

Full show notes at the publisher

Database Essentials Jul 23, 2024

Show notes

Join hosts Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham, along with Hope Fisher, Oracle's Product Manager for Database Technologies, as they break down the basics of databases, explore different database management systems, and delve into database development. Whether you're a newcomer or just need a refresher, this quick, informative episode is sure to offer you some valuable insights.

Oracle MyLearn: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/database-essentials/133032/
Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/
X: https://twitter.com/Oracle_Edu

Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode. -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript:

00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started!

00:26 Nikita: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast. I'm Nikita Abraham, Principal Technical Editor with Oracle University, and with me is Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs.

Lois: Hi there! For the last seven weeks, we've been exploring the world of OCI Container Engine for Kubernetes with our senior instructor Mahendra Mehra. We covered key aspects of OKE to help you create, manage, and optimize Kubernetes clusters in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. So, be sure you check out those episodes if you're interested in Kubernetes.