Re: Tough question for oracle DBAs/Solaris Admins. Log shipping.

From: Chris Cox <notccox_at_notairmail.net>
Date: Sat, 02 Sep 2006 09:54:37 -0500
Message-ID: <12fj6pe46m7qk24@corp.supernews.com>

Logan Shaw wrote:
> Karen Hill wrote:

>> DA Morgan wrote:
>>> Karen Hill wrote:
>>>> We know that Oracle and SUN/Solaris go together quite well on high end
>>>> installs.  To insure an audit trail for BASEL ,  HIPPA, Sarbanes Ox and
>>>> other federal laws, one can ship oracle logs to an offsite server.
>>>> Yet, how can this guarentee an audit trail, when Solaris does not
>>>> support immutable files?  Immutable files are files where not even root
>>>> can change/delete/move a file set as immutable.
>>> The secret it to keep audit trails inside the database and create an
>>> audit trail of any attempt to alter it.
>>>
>>> How can I tell if the audit trail's been altered?
>>> One way is to apply DBMS_CRYPTO to the data.
>>> Data alteration becomes impossible.
>>
>> Where does Oracle keep the encryption keys?  If someone has root could
>> they not just sniff out where oracle has the encryption keys and then
>> decrypt the data?

>
> If someone is root, they can do anything, including writing to immutable
> files. Or do you also create immutable disk devices in /dev and immutable
> kernel data structures so that the kernel code can't be patched? If so,
> I'd be impressed. I don't know a way to do it.

I think what the OP is wanting is adherence to the weak security understanding of the Fed. It doesn't have to be secure, just has to pass what the Fed believes is secure.

If the Fed even had a rudimentary understanding of security, we probably wouldnt' have computers anymore (at least for Fed stuff). Received on Sat Sep 02 2006 - 09:54:37 CDT