DOAG 2013 Datenbank

As I announced a while ago in SOUG Special Interest Group Baden March 21st I’ll speak again about some improvements in the latest generation of Oracle Database. The content of the presentation is a mixture of the presentations I’ve lectured at SOUG SIG Baden and DOAG SIG Security Munich. It covers the following possible new features. The features will explained by several practical examples.

  • Data Redaction
  • Unified Database Auditing
  • Role and Privilege Analysis

More Information on the Event is available on the DOAG website.

Due to the fact that this presentation contains preliminary information, the slides will not be available for download yet. But I will make the download link available once the dust settles on the latest Generation of Database Technology…

DOAG SIG Security

Just a couple of hours ago I’ve lecture a presentation about the latest Generation of Database Technology at the DOAG SIG Security in München. It is a sneak preview on a few upcoming security improvements. Unfortunately I do not yet have the permission to provide the presentation for download. But I will make the download link available once the dust settles on the latest Generation of Database Technology…

so stay tuned.

SOUG Special Intrest Group Baden March 21st

In about two weeks I will participate at the SOUG special interest group at Baden. I will present a paper entitled “New Security Features in latest generation of Oracle Database“. Where latest generation of Oracle Database does not stand for an other Oracle 11g release. But that’s an other story…

The aim of the presentation is to provide a range of information on new security features as they could be released in with latest generation of Oracle Database. It covers the following possible new features.

  • Data Redaction
  • Unified Datenbank Auditing
  • Role and Privilege Analysis
  • Improved Database Vault
  • Database Application Security Architecture
  • Improved Key Management
  • New OS Roles

Have a look at the SOUG Webpage for a detailed Agenda of the Event and the location. Looking forward to see you there.

Due to the fact that this presentation contains preliminary information, the slides will not be available for download. It is a must to personally attend the SIG SOUG 🙂 If you do not have time to participate at the SOUG event, you have a second chance later this year. I’ve planned a similar presentation for the DOAG Event in Düsseldorf. More on that later.

Oracle released CPU / PSU January 2013

As announced in my post about Oracle’s pre-release announcement of last week, Oracle has now released the first Critical Patch Updates for 2013. Overall this CPU contains 86 new security fixes across several Oracle products like Database Server, MySQL Server, Sun Product Suite, WebLogic Server etc. For products like Oracle Database Mobile it does contain quite some critical security fixes with a CVSS Rating of 10. On the other hand there’s just one security fix for regular oracle database servers. This security fix relates merely to the SPATIAL option. For a variety of Oracle database server, which do not use the spatial option, this CPU is not so critical. It’s probably worth waiting for the CPU april 2013.

CPU Release Dates

The next four Critical Patch Updates will be released at the following dates:

  • 16 April 2013
  • 16 July 2013
  • 15 October 2013
  • 14 January 2014

References

Links all around Critical Patch Update:

New Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall

In the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, it went under that Oracle had released a new version of Oracle Audit Vault respectively Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall. This weekend I found some time to take a first look into the new release.

What’s New

About a year ago Oracle released the Audit Vault Server 10.3. (see New release of Oracle Audit Vault). During this update Oracle mainly moved internally to a 11.2.0.3 database. The architecture has remained more or less the same. But this has changed now. Oracle is trying to complete its security portfolio. Therefore Oracle has merged the two Oracle Audit Vault and Oracle Database Firewall into the new Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall. From the security officer point of view it is definitely more interesting to only have one platform. On the other hand a software appliance is one of the favorites of the DBA and Unix admins. What about, updates, HA, backup & recovery etc? I’ll try to consider these thoughts in a later post on installing and configuring the new Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall.

Some short notes on the new features:

  • Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall is released as a software appliance-based platform
  • Internally Oracle does use Oracle 11.2.0.3 including Advance Security and Database Vault to enforce Database security and segregation of duties
  • One simple setup does install and configure the operating system, software, database, web frontend etc
  • Audit Vault Agents for:
  • Oracle Database 10g
  • Oracle Database 11g
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2005
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008
  • Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) versions 12.5.4 to 15.0.x
  • IBM DB2 version 9.x (Linux, UNIX, Microsoft Windows)
  • Solaris operating system
  • Oracle ACFS
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Microsoft Active Directory 2008
  • Microsoft Active Directory 2008 R2 on 64 bit

New Architecture

As initially mentioned Audit Vault and Database Firewall are moving closer. Oracle Audit Vault is now also the data storage and analysis platform for the Oracle Database Firewall. Former Database Firewall Management Server is eliminated and thus is replaced with Oracle Audit Vault.

OverviewAVDF

An important note here is that Oracle Audit Vault can not be installed on different platforms as before. It is rather a software appliance like the Oracle Database Firewall. The license for each Oracle Audit Vault and Oracle Database Firewall includes always a license for Oracle Enterprise Linux as well. To install only the appropriate hardware is required. This can be a virtual or a physical host. To setup my test environment, I’ve use as usual virtual servers.

Oracle AVDF Requirements

To install Oracle AVDF the following minimal Hardware Requirements must be met. See as the online installation guide for more details on the installation requirements in particular for the supported secured target products (agents).

  • x86 64-bit Server
  • 2 GB Ram
  • single hard drive 125 GB
  • 1 NIC for Audit Vault Server
  • 1 NIC for Database Firewall Proxy Mode
  • 2 NICs for Database Firewall DAM Mode (monitoring)
  • 3 NICs for Database Firewall DPE Mode (blocking)

In addition to the hardware the following software is required to begin the installation:

  • Oracle Linux Release 5 Update 8 for x86_64 (64 Bit) V31120-01 (3.7GB)
  • Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall (12.1.0.0.0) – Server V35715-01 (3.4GB)
  • Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall (12.1.0.0.0) – Database Firewall V35716-01 (3.1GB)

The server can not be used for other activities, setup of either Oracle Audit Vault or Oracle Database Firewall will completely reimage the server. But I’ll post more details on the installation later this month.

Resources

Links all around the new Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall…

Oracle CPU / PSU Pre-Release Announcement January 2013

Today Oracle has published the Pre-Release Announcement for the first CPU Patch in 2013. This Critical Patch Update contains 86 new security vulnerability fixes for several Oracle products. From the Oracle database point of view it is quite a small update. There is only one security fix for the Oracle Database Server and no for client-only installations.

Although the CVSS rating of this vulnerability is 9.0, it looks that there is no hurry to install this security fix on most of the database environments. This is because only the spatial is affected. If this is true, we’ll see next Tuesday when Oracle is officially releasing CPU / PSU January 2013. Next week I’ll have a closer look.

More details about the patch will follow soon on the Oracle Security Pages.

Oracle CPU / PSU Pre-Release Announcement October 2012

Today Oracle has published the Pre-Release Announcement for the october CPU Patch. This Critical Patch Update contains 109 new security vulnerability fixes for several Oracle products. 5 of these fixes are just for the Oracle Database Server including 2 fixes for client-only installations. What frighten me a bit, is the CVSS Base Score of 10 for the core RDBMS. Oracle apparently has to close another big security issue. The core RDBMS is by the way the only component which has to be patched by this CPU. In combination with this severity everybody will have to patch. SCN flaw, TNS poisoning, Oracle Password Hashing Algorithm Weaknesses, etc obviously it’s the oracle-year of critical issues. Any way we will see it next week in detailed. As mentioned just the following Database Server Products are affected.

  • Core RDBMS

So far the Database Server Patch’s are planned for Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.2,11.2.0.3), Oracle Database 11g Release 1 (11.2.0.7) and Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.3, 10.2.0.4, 10.2.0.5).

The official release for the CPU / PSU is planned for next week 16 October 2012. More details about the patch will follow soon on the Oracle Security Pages.

Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2

Today Oracle announced the general availability of Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2. (see press release Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Release 2 Now Available ) The release introduces a bunch of new and improve capabilities for deploying and managing business applications in an enterprise private cloud, such as Java Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), enhanced business application management, and integrated hardware-software management for Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud.

General availability means in this case, that the new binaries can be downloaded on OTN for Linux x86-64 (64-bit), Linux x86 (32-bit), Solaris Operating System (SPARC), Solaris Operating System (x86-64), IBM AIX on POWER Systems (64-bit) and Windows x86-64 (64-bit)

What’s New in 12.1.0.2

According the online documentation this release includes the following new features:

  • Framework and Infrastructure
  • EM CLI Verbs Available in the Software Library
  • Stage Operation
  • Enhanced Repository Page
  • New Oracle Management Service Page
  • Consolidated Agent Management Page
  • Dynamic Groups
  • Support for BI Publisher 11.1.6.0
  • Better Support for Changing WebLogic Server Demonstration Certificates
  • EM CLI Tracking and Setup
  • Support for Properties for Enterprise Manager Administrators

  • Enterprise Monitoring and Incident Management Features
    • Search in Administration Group Hierarchy
    • Monitoring Templates and Template Collections Enhancements
    • Grant Edit or Full Privileges on Metric Extensions
    • Monitoring Templates and Template Collections Enhancements
    • Incident Manager Updates

  • Fusion Middleware Plug-in 12.1.0.3 Features

  • Application Management Features
    • Oracle Fusion Applications Plug-in 12.1.0.3 Features

  • Cloud Management Features
    • Cloud Management Plug-in 12.1.0.4 Features
    • Virtualization Management Plug-in 12.1.0.3 Features

  • Heterogeneous (Non-Oracle) Management
    • Metadata Plug-In Support

    Resources

    Links all around the Enterprise Manager, software, presentations and documentation:

    Requirements

    The requirements are still the same as for 12c release 1. The following excerpt has been taken from Oracle® Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Basic Installation Guide.

    • OS Requirments: Oracle Linux 6, Oracle Linux 5.x, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x, SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, Asianux Server 3
    • Hardware Requirments OMS (small) : 2 Cores, 4 GB RAM 6 GB RAM with ADPFoot 1 , JVMDFoot 2, 10 GB Hard Disk Space or 14GB Hard Disk Space with ADP, JVMD

    As soon as I find time I’ll install this new release….

    Resize swap space on linux

    A few times a year I create a new linux VM. I usually do this by using a kickstart server. The kickstart configuration file I normally use is creating a swap partition which is to small for an Oracle database server. Unfortunately, I forget regularly how to resize the swap partition. Ok, I could update my kickstart configuration file before I create the VM, but this gets forgotten as well 😉

    Background

    I try to limit the size of my VM as good as possible. Disk space on a SSD disk is not yet as cheep as it should be. Therefore I usually create VM disk which can grow to certain limit. For the swap disk I use a 4GB VM disk and define a swap space of about 2G. The VM disk itself will not grow as long as there is not a lot of swapping. But if the VM has at least 2GB memory the Oracle installer is complaining about to low swap space. Ok, you can ignore this 😉 or you can increase the swap space.

    Let’s do it

    Check the current settings

    cat /etc/fstab 
LABEL=/                 /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
LABEL=/u00              /u00                    ext3    defaults        1 2
LABEL=/u01              /u01                    ext3    defaults        1 2
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
LABEL=SWAP-sdb1         swap                    swap    defaults        0 0

    Switch off the swap device

    swapoff -a

    Recreate the swap partition with frisk

    fdisk /dev/sdb


Command (m for help): m
Command action
   a   toggle a bootable flag
   b   edit bsd disklabel
   c   toggle the dos compatibility flag
   d   delete a partition
   l   list known partition types
   m   print this menu
   n   add a new partition
   o   create a new empty DOS partition table
   p   print the partition table
   q   quit without saving changes
   s   create a new empty Sun disklabel
   t   change a partition's system id
   u   change display/entry units
   v   verify the partition table
   w   write table to disk and exit
   x   extra functionality (experts only)

    Delete the old swap partition 

    Command (m for help): d
Selected partition 1

Command (m for help): d
No partition is defined yet!

    Select the partition type 

    Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): l

 0  Empty           1e  Hidden W95 FAT1 80  Old Minix       bf  Solaris        
 1  FAT12           24  NEC DOS         81  Minix / old Lin c1  DRDOS/sec (FAT-
 2  XENIX root      39  Plan 9          82  Linux swap / So c4  DRDOS/sec (FAT-
 3  XENIX usr       3c  PartitionMagic  83  Linux           c6  DRDOS/sec (FAT-
 4  FAT16 <32M      40  Venix 80286     84  OS/2 hidden C:  c7  Syrinx         
 5  Extended        41  PPC PReP Boot   85  Linux extended  da  Non-FS data    
 6  FAT16           42  SFS             86  NTFS volume set db  CP/M / CTOS / .
 7  HPFS/NTFS       4d  QNX4.x          87  NTFS volume set de  Dell Utility   
 8  AIX             4e  QNX4.x 2nd part 88  Linux plaintext df  BootIt         
 9  AIX bootable    4f  QNX4.x 3rd part 8e  Linux LVM       e1  DOS access     
 a  OS/2 Boot Manag 50  OnTrack DM      93  Amoeba          e3  DOS R/O        
 b  W95 FAT32       51  OnTrack DM6 Aux 94  Amoeba BBT      e4  SpeedStor      
 c  W95 FAT32 (LBA) 52  CP/M            9f  BSD/OS          eb  BeOS fs        
 e  W95 FAT16 (LBA) 53  OnTrack DM6 Aux a0  IBM Thinkpad hi ee  EFI GPT        
 f  W95 Ext'd (LBA) 54  OnTrackDM6      a5  FreeBSD         ef  EFI (FAT-12/16/
10  OPUS            55  EZ-Drive        a6  OpenBSD         f0  Linux/PA-RISC b
11  Hidden FAT12    56  Golden Bow      a7  NeXTSTEP        f1  SpeedStor      
12  Compaq diagnost 5c  Priam Edisk     a8  Darwin UFS      f4  SpeedStor      
14  Hidden FAT16 3 61  SpeedStor       a9  NetBSD          f2  DOS secondary  
16  Hidden FAT16    63  GNU HURD or Sys ab  Darwin boot     fb  VMware VMFS    
17  Hidden HPFS/NTF 64  Novell Netware  b7  BSDI fs         fc  VMware VMKCORE 
18  AST SmartSleep  65  Novell Netware  b8  BSDI swap       fd  Linux raid auto
1b  Hidden W95 FAT3 70  DiskSecure Mult bb  Boot Wizard hid fe  LANstep        
1c  Hidden W95 FAT3 75  PC/IX           be  Solaris boot    ff  BBT            
Hex code (type L to list codes): 82
Changed system type of partition 1 to 82 (Linux swap / Solaris)

    Create a new partition. I’ll use the full size of the disk /dev/sdb 

    Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-522, default 1): 
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-522, default 522): 
Using default value 522

    Write the changes to disk and exit 

    Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.

    Now it’s time to create a new swap filesystem with mkswap. Because I use labels in fstab, I create the new filesystem again with a label.

    mkswap /dev/sdb1 -L SWAP-sdb1

    Enable the swap device again

    swapon -a

    Display the new swap info

    swapon -s
Filename                                Type            Size    Used    Priority
/dev/sdb1                               partition       4192924 34324   -1

    Oracle TNS Poison vulnerability

    A few days after the last critical patch update Oracle had to post security alert for CVE-2012-1675. The issue also known as “TNS Listener Poison Attack” is affecting any Oracle Database Server. As a personal reference I have summarized the most important information about this topic.

    Vulnerability Description

    This security alert addresses the security issue CVE-2012-1675, a vulnerability in the TNS listener which has been recently disclosed as “TNS Listener Poison Attack” affecting the Oracle Database Server. This vulnerability may be remotely exploitable without authentication, i.e. it may be exploited over a network without the need for a username and password. A remote user can exploit this vulnerability to impact the confidentiality, integrity and availability of systems that do not have recommended solution applied. The post The history of a -probably- 13 years old Oracle bug: TNS Poison from Joxean Koret is explaining how this vulnerability can be exploited.

    Impact

    The attack point of this vulnerability is once again the Oracle listener. The impact of this vulnerability differs from the network configuration of the database server and listener. Public accessible listener will suffer a lot from this issue while internal listener a bit less.

    • Public accessible Listener e.g. listener is accessible from the internet => extremely critical
    • Listener is accessible by the company network e.g. any client can access the listener => very critical
    • Network zoning or network segmentation is used. E.g only a limited number of system accessing (application server) can access listener => critical

    Bug fix

    According to Oracle (see web sources below) there is no security fix for this issue. It probably will not be fixed before Oracle 12c. Until now there are several workarounds to eliminate or minimize the potential security risk.

    Workaround

    In order to prevent the exploitation of the vulnerability the dynamic registration must be switched of or it must be limited (e.g only local registrations, allow certain IP’s or identified by certificate )

    1. Switch off dynamic registration

      2. Switch off dynamic registration by setting dynamic_registration_LISTENER_NAME=off in listener.ora according to DYNAMIC_REGISTRATION_listener_name To switch off the dynamic registration is not an option if you’re using Oracle DataGuard, RAC or the PL/SQL Gateway in connection with APEX.

    2. Using Class of Secure Transport on single inctance databases

      3. Oracle recommend to set class of secure transportation to restrict instance registration to the local system. This parameter is available since Oracle 10.2.0.3 and can be implemented according to MOS Note 1453883.1

    3. Using Class of Secure Transport in Oracle RAC

      4. For RAC the use of COST is a bit more complex and require to configure SSL/TCPS. This is as well only possible for Oracle 10.2.0.3 and newer. It can be implemented according to MOS Note 1340831.1

    4. Limit Network Access

      5. Start using valid node checking to limit access to listener to certain IP addresses.

      TCP.VALIDNODE_CHECKING = YES
TCP.INVITED_NODE = (Comma separated list of ALL valid, clients)
    5. Limit Network Access on the network

      6. As an alternative limit network access to certain listener on the network layer e.g. network segmentation, firewalls etc.

    Strategy

    I recommend to install the latest CPU / PSU as well as one of the workaround mentioned above. In it is a good advice to switch of remote registration in general if it is not used e.g for RAC.

    What to do when the workaround is not available for the database release e.g 9i databases? From the security point of view I recommend to upgrade the database to the latest supported major release with in a useful time.

    Web Sources

    Web sources around this topic.