New approaches to securing the database

Abstract

Much of the effort in recent years to secure the corporate IT infrastructure has focused on the perimeter - how to defend the enterprise from external intruders, from hacking and from malicious attacks. The corporate network has also seen its share of improvements in security, providing a further layer of protection. The data layer, however, remains the soft underbelly of enterprise IT infrastructure. The technology required to monitor and block suspicious database activity has come a long way and has evolved from native audit to network monitoring to ever more sophisticated host based sensors. Here we discuss the new approaches organisations can take to further securing the database. Much of the effort in recent years to secure corporate IT infrastructure has focused on the perimeter - how to defend the enterprise from external intruders, hacking and malicious attacks. The corporate network has also seen its share of improvements in security, providing a further layer of protection. The data layer, however, remains the soft underbelly of enterprise IT infrastructure.