Activity Monitoring helps ensure database security

Databases are a constant target for unauthorized access because they possess information and sensitive documents essential to business operation. According to the 2010 Data Breach Investigations Report, databases were compromised in 25% of breaches and accounted for 92% of records stolen.

To reduce the risk of data breach, organizations need to deploy security tools that monitor databases for unauthorized access and alert security teams in real time when such events occur. Security teams should be able to actively analyze events to determine what is normal and what abnormal user activity. Privileged users routinely access systems containing highly sensitive data, and research show that 48% of breaches were caused by someone who maliciously abused or unintentionally misused privileges.Organizations should use an integrated security strategy that provides real-time monitoring and reporting on database access and activity by privileged users. Also, there is often a misperception that meeting requirements identified by regulation, which are meant to provide a baseline for effective security controls, ensures a secure organization.Companies should deploy a comprehensive database activity monitoring tool that includes automated monitoring, alerting, and reporting across all of corporate databases. More details about datacenter security could be found at DataCenterJournalmagazine.