In the spirit of keeping blog posts informative, short and fun, this one takes a cue from David Letterman in format. So without further fanfare or wasted space… the Top 10 Reasons to Implement Least Privilege for Applications and Databases. How may of these have you seen throughout your organization?
#10 – Sam, the CSO can now sleep nights knowing that inappropriate database activities are not only being monitored but also prevented via policy enforcement at a granular level.
#9 – Fiona, the DBA, won’t be able to modify the production database instead of the test copy in the sandbox accidentally or even accidentally on purpose.
#8 – Frank, your sole application developer will no longer have to rewrite legacy applications in order to strip out any code requiring administrative privileges.
#7 – Ted, the overzealous Tech Support Tech won’t be able to upgrade your production database to the latest version of Oracle released today before the IT department has had time to vet the impact on current processes and attached applications.
#6 – Ken, the CSO can delegate database access based on access control policies that leverage external context such as SOX, PCI-DSS and FFIEC compliance.
#5 – Carl, the compliance executive can now quickly identify all privileged users, review entitlements and if necessary, de-provision obsolete users in order to pass your next enterprise IT audit.
#4 – Francine, the COO can now easily ensure adherence to change control processes across the extended enterprise for all databases and even reconcile with the change ticketing system.
#3 – Larry the new DBA won’t have to call his predecessor, who is now serving eight years in the penitentiary for identity theft and attempted sale of your entire customer credit card transaction database, to learn the new processes for DAM.
#2 – Beth in Human Resources won’t be able to forward the entire company payroll ledger to WikiLeaks because the CEO didn’t tell her how great she looked today.
#1 – The IT department can still have the 35th annual birthday party next week for that payroll application that requires desktop admin rights but no one knows where the source code is to make it more contemporary instead of replacing it outright.
