Managing Auditing in Oracle Database 12c
Key Concepts
- Fine-Grained Auditing (FGA)
- Standard Auditing
- Auditing Policies
- Audit Trails
- Auditing Views and Reports
Fine-Grained Auditing (FGA)
Fine-Grained Auditing (FGA) allows you to audit specific actions on specific data within the database. This is achieved by defining policies that trigger audits based on conditions such as SQL statements, user actions, or data values. FGA provides detailed and targeted auditing, making it ideal for regulatory compliance and security monitoring.
Example: You can set up an FGA policy to audit all SELECT statements on a particular table where the salary column is greater than 10,000. This ensures that any access to high-salary data is logged for review.
Standard Auditing
Standard Auditing involves logging specific database events, such as user logins, DDL operations, and DML statements. This type of auditing is configured at the system or object level and is useful for capturing a broad range of activities within the database.
Example: You can enable standard auditing to log all CREATE TABLE statements executed by any user. This helps in tracking the creation of new tables and ensuring compliance with database schema changes.
Auditing Policies
Auditing policies define the rules and conditions under which auditing should occur. These policies can be applied to specific users, roles, or database objects. Policies can be created using SQL commands and are stored in the database for future reference and enforcement.
Example: You can create an auditing policy that logs all DELETE statements on a sensitive table. This policy ensures that any deletion of data from this table is recorded for auditing purposes.
Audit Trails
Audit trails are the records generated by the auditing process. These records contain detailed information about the audited events, including the user, timestamp, SQL statement, and affected data. Audit trails are stored in specific tables and can be queried to review and analyze audit data.
Example: The audit trail for a particular policy might include entries like "User A accessed table B at timestamp X with SQL statement Y." This information is crucial for post-event analysis and compliance reporting.
Auditing Views and Reports
Oracle provides various views and reports to facilitate the review and analysis of audit data. These views, such as DBA_AUDIT_TRAIL and DBA_FGA_AUDIT_TRAIL, allow administrators to query the audit trails and generate reports summarizing the audited activities.
Example: Using the DBA_AUDIT_TRAIL view, you can generate a report that lists all DDL operations performed in the last week. This report can be used to review schema changes and ensure they were authorized.
By mastering the concepts of Fine-Grained Auditing, Standard Auditing, Auditing Policies, Audit Trails, and Auditing Views and Reports, you can effectively manage and monitor the security and compliance of your Oracle Database 12c environment.