Manish Shah
One of the most important aspects of database monitoring is auditing the activities to determine who is accessing the data and how that data is being used. Whether your database is hosted on-premise or in the cloud, it has to be audited and monitored regularly, while making sure that end-user can have quick and secure access! But how do you perform a database audit? Here are some suggestions:
Invest in the right database activity monitoring solution
There are centralized server-based solutions you can use for an all-in-one platform for monitoring and auditing. Look for a web-based platform that is proven to provide secure central access to data and logs all user activities, including SQL activity and user authentication. This way, you have full visibility on who is accessing the data, when it was accessed, and the reason why it was viewed or modified.
A good database activity monitoring tool will make database audit simpler as it logs all critical details, such as the user ID, IP address, time, database username, SQL queries, wrong login attempts, and much more. This way, regulation compliance will be easier to attain, especially when your organization has a lot of end-users, as all users and activities are made to go through one server instead of multiple ones.
Apply object access control to the database
This will enable database administrators and users to access data securely without relying on permissions or assigning roles. That way, database security remains intact. It can be a valuable way to audit databases for industries like sales and human resources.
Integrate software for log and metrics management
Sumologic and Splunk are just some of the software products you can integrate into your database audit practices. When used with the right database management tool, they can easily acquire log files and continuously oversee data access, so any attacks and anomalies are easier to detect and remediate.
Apply dynamic data masking
Using predefined policies, dynamic data masking can be part of your database audit. The central policy management of your database management solution will enable administrators to grant access only to the necessary data. This way, there is no need to create separate databases just for the end users, and you can attain GDPR data protection.
About the Author:
This article is written by Manish Shah, the CEO of Datasparc Inc. Datasparc offers data security, database management, data governance and data analytics; all in one solution. They offer DBHawk™, a web based SQL tool & database reporting software designed for Oracle, SQL Server and other databases.
