RE: audit suggestion

Ron,

I like your four quotes under the signature. Recently after a "successful" implementation of SOX we had an email from the security admin that it was OK to send encrypted passwords in email but not otherwise...!!!! Now what is that sanctity of encrypted pwds....; I don't know.

Shreeni

-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Ron Thomas
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 12:33 PM
To: mgogala_at_allegientsystems.com
Cc: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: Re: audit suggestion

Mladen-

This is not like you... You seem to be holding back!

BTW, I agree. I've had many occasions to "educate" some bone-head auditors, especially with the latest SARBOX stuff.

Thanks,
Ron.

"To really screw up Linux you have to work at it...To really screw up Windows, you have to work ON it."

"The software said to install Windows 98 or better... So I installed linux."
"Windows - How do you want to be exploited today?"
"Friends don't let friends use IE"


 

             mgogala_at_allegientsystems.co

             m

             Sent by:
To 
             oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.o         KATHERINE_KAYLOR_at_rsausa.com

             rg
cc 
                                                 oracle-l_at_freelists.org

 
Subject 
             01/24/05 11:16 AM                   Re: audit suggestion

 

 

                  Please respond to

             mgogala_at_allegientsystems.co

                          m

 

 

KATHERINE_KAYLOR_at_rsausa.com wrote:

>We just completed an external audit and one of the findings from the
>auditors is that DBAs should not have cron rights in Unix.
>

Let me start with moderate and reserved statement that your auditor is an idiot. Actually he or she is an idiot to the fifth degree, but I am not allowed to say that.

> The finding
>basically stated that a DBA could schedule something to run malicious
>code from cron and therefore is a security threat.
>

Of course, being able to connect as sysdba does not enable him to do anything dangerous to anything other then to the company data. He neglected to mention the danger coming from the auditors having IQ smaller then the shoe size. Also, there is a package that "it" has apparently never heard of: DBMS_JOB which allows the DBA to do pretty much the same thing without ever running cron.

> Frankly, I don't see how
>that's much different from just running the script interactively.
>Unless the DBA is kicked off the Unix server period.....
>
>

This was a Microsoft sales person in disguise. His recommendation is that you don't need a DBA.
Oracle database allegedly has sufficient artificial intelligence to offset the human stupidity. That, I am afraid, is not the case.

>I'm curious if other sites have restricted DBA's access to such a point
>that they no longer are allowed to develop and promote shell scripts
>for databases. This is supposed to be a 'segregation' of duties, but
>it seems to me that if you are going to run a script that is in the
>'DBA' group then what's really happened is that access is now opened up
>to the UNIX administrators (considering they are a separate job).
>
>

Technical auditors are supposed to be qualified persons. Unfortunately, management frequently hires "well known" auditing companies like DLJ which have so many audits that they cannot event begin to cover them with even moderately technically competent auditors, so they cover some of the "audited" companies with incompetent cheap morons. Management should insist that the DBA auditing the company have OCP and five years of provable experience in the field. So many of those "auditors" are blithering idiots who all behave in the same way: they keep quiet and mysterious, first "documenting" everything and then making "recommendations". I was once able to challenge an auditor that opened his mouth and let me know that he has 6 months of experience with Oracle RDBMS and yet he was doing audits. Your auditor was obviously a bird of the feather. I would advise against following his recommendations. Your company management should create a ruckus at the auditing company HQ and require either a technically competent auditor or their money back. SoX and HIPAA auditing has become a "grab the money and run" type affair.
If you want to hear what I really feel, contact me privately, but this should suffice.

--
Mladen Gogala
Oracle DBA
Ext. 121


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