Re: User Security Question

On Nov 2, 1:32 pm, HectorTYC <rufus_mi..._at_btinternet.com> wrote:
> Database version: 9.2.0.6.0
> OS = Solaris 8
>
> I currently work for an organisation that continually shoots itself in
> the foot with the large amount of unauthorised changes it makes to the
> production database of the main business application. These changes
> are being made by a motley bunch of devlopers, support analysts ...
> pretty much anyone who feels like it really.
>
> To make matters worse they are doing this using the main schema
> account (please excuse me if I mangle terminology, I'm not a DBA) used
> by the application itself, thus leaving no audit trail of who has made
> these changes. All show as being the application that has made the
> change, rather than some nut with Toad and a cavalier attitude as is
> more often the case. Worse; tracing (?) is not turned on so that info
> is even more limited than it could be.
>
> I am aware of how bad this is m'kay (on any number of levels) but
> until I can persuade/force the organisation to plough resource into
> what is quite a large undertaking, simply changing the password is an
> appealing but not viable option.
>
> As an interim measure I am resigning myself to attempting to force
> people not to use this account using policy and a mixture of begging
> and loud tutting, however I'd be interested to see if anyone out there
> has any clever suggestions as to how I could stop people using the
> application user account without making changes to the account or
> incurring any DB downtime. I did wonder if it was possible to allow
> connections by this user from only a list of trusted sources but our
> DBA thinks this isn't possible.

Too bad you are not US based. I say this because the environment you describe is not SOX complaint and almost any audit would have written this up as a violation.

As a general rule developers should have update access to production data nor should customers except via a provided application screen. Unfortunately there are more exceptions than sites that follow this basic policy.

Try documenting mistakes that affect production and how much time it took to fix the error. Time is money. Most managers at least partially understand money and the desirability of not letting others waste it.

IMHO -- Mark D Powell -- Received on Fri Nov 02 2007 - 13:57:29 CDT