Misconfigurations and inadequate identity controls are key risks that caused a 60% increase in cyberattacks on cloud environments.

This shows the rising difficulty of safeguarding distributed cloud environments, as IT environments get more complex. When cloud-native data and applications begin to scale, vulnerabilities, be they minor or major, can all lead to detrimental consequences.  

‘The Death Star’ from Star Wars – Rings a bell on how it was secured? It was powerful; however, it was strategically designed to shield against devastating breaches. The Rebel Alliance took advantage of a tiny vulnerability, breaching the dangerous entity. Similarly, cybercriminals today are attacking the smallest loophole.  

Small, mid-sized, and large organizations all struggle with security breaches, even after implementing security solutions. Where are they falling flat? It could be an administrative loophole or a lack of expanding the security core to the entire IT stack. A robust cyber defense when you’re running on the cloud, like on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, is essential because attackers take advantage of unrestricted access to APIs, inadequately secured Kubernetes clusters, and lax identity standards. Each component, from networking, database services, storage, and computation—needs preemptive and coordinated defenses. This blog provides an overall view of OCI security services and their best practices to help enterprises create a zero-trust architecture while addressing new threats.

Security Benefits of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI): Safeguarding Data and Applications  

Oracle's cloud infrastructure services aid businesses in securing their mission-critical data and applications with great efficiency. OCI cloud security framework offers end-to-end benefits; it is an in-depth environment designed to implement security and compliance in cloud platforms. Here is a brief overview of its advantages:  

  • Isolation of customers: This feature showcases tenant isolation that allows compliance and setup of data and application assets in a separate environment from both Oracle resources and other tenants. It utilizes VCNs (virtual cloud networks), compartments, and more.  
  • Encrypting data: This helps fulfill security and compliance needs with cryptographic algorithms and key management by protecting crucial data both in transit and at rest. 
  • Access controls for security: Reduces the dangers of both malicious and unintentional user actions by limiting access to services and separating operational duties. 
  • One-stop Visibility: This offers thorough log data and security analytics for auditing and tracking activity on assets. Thanks to this visibility, operational risk can be lowered, and audit requirements can be fulfilled.  
  • Hybrid, secure cloud: This helps businesses to make the most of their current security resources, including policies and user accounts. It permits access to cloud resources while using third-party security solutions and secures applications and data inside the cloud.  
  • Secure Infrastructure: This adheres to strict procedures and the usage of efficient security measures throughout the operation of cloud services. Through third-party audits, certifications, and attestations, it ensures regulatory compliance thanks to its secure infrastructure.

Becoming An AI-first Bank Steps to Follow

Security Best Practices Across OCI-Native Services

1. Autonomous Recovery Service  

A private endpoint must be used within the virtual cloud network where the database is located, to use Recovery Service. Security rules are a useful tool for managing Recovery Service access to a database on a virtual cloud network (VCN). Additionally, this prevents all traffic to and from the database from bleeding over to the open internet. To restrict access to recovery service resources, Recovery Service policies can be used. Privileges must be restricted as far as feasible. The users should be granted access that only concerns them, where they can do their tasks.

2. Compute Service  

Businesses can provision and manage compute hosts, sometimes referred to as instances, using the Compute service. Instances can be created as needed to satisfy application and computation needs. Once an instance has been created, it can be accessed, modified, and terminated as per requirements. Limited access should be provided to users as per their tasks. To safeguard data and gain access to protected resources, encryption keys can be used. Patching is also essential to avoid vulnerabilities. 

3. Data Integration and Data Transfer Service  

It is feasible to grant DIS_WORKSPACE_DELETE permission to the smallest group of IAM users and groups to reduce data loss from malicious or unintentional deletions by authorized users. Credentials should only be given to read-only accounts to safeguard data sources from security flaws. To consume data from data assets, data integration just requires read access. Large volumes of data can be moved to buckets within an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tenancy using offline data transfer options.  

4. Kubernetes Services  

Incoming users or groups are matched to a set of permissions that are packaged into roles by Kubernetes' integrated Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) component. These rights can be scoped to a namespace or cluster and integrate resources (pods, services, and nodes) with verbs. By establishing pod security policies for a cluster that is built using Kubernetes Engine, tasks can be managed, that pods are permitted to carry out on the cluster.

5. Networking Services

To manage network access, a tiered subnet plan for the VCN can be developed. Having the following subnet tiers is a popular design pattern: a private subnet for internal hosts like databases, a public subnet for externally accessible hosts like NAT instances and web application servers, and a DMZ subnet for load balancers. DNS filtering is used for security, and load balancers can be employed to divide traffic.

6. Resource Management

By committing the instructions to configuration files, Resource Manager enables the automation and provisioning of OCI resources. By doing this, the resources are provisioned per the organization's security policies. These configuration files use a declarative language that adheres to the "infrastructure-as-code" paradigm to ensure secure practices of provisioning. Resource Manager removes human error, implements access controls, and lessens misconfigurations – which is a huge propagator of security vulnerabilities.  

7. VMware Solutions on OCI  

To restrict access to the VMware solution, policies should be utilized in OCI. Network security groups, security lists, or a mix of the two can be used to manage packet-level traffic entering and leaving the virtual cloud network's resources. The most recent security updates should be verified on VMware Solution resources.

OCI-native Security Services: In a Glance  

1.  Access Management Services

User authentication and resource access authorization are provided by Oracle Identity and Access Management (IAM). Examining audit logs regularly is essential for reviewing modifications made to IAM users, groups, and security policies. Credentials, Multi-factor Authentication, Federated Identity Management, and other measures can be used to secure tenancies.  

2. Threat Intelligence Services  

Businesses should understand their security and compliance obligations to use threat intelligence safely. Since this database is a read-only design, it stands out from other OCI-managed security services and keeps the system unaltered. Oracle Cloud Guard is used for threat detection, that implements advanced intelligence to deal with security threats. With Oracle Threat Intelligence Service, it makes sure that users gain crucial intelligence, and they don’t need to make changes to the system simultaneously.  

3. Vulnerability Scanning  

By constantly examining hosts for potential vulnerabilities, vulnerability screening helps strengthen the security posture of Oracle Cloud. These screenings preemptively recognize and eliminate risks to prevent exploitation. Complementing this, Oracle generally offers cloud infrastructure and operations security, including patching for infrastructure security and cloud operator access restrictions. It is important to set up cloud resources safely to ensure cloud security. This enhances wider infrastructure security services like Oracle Bastion to ensure safe resource access. Cloud Guard also helps in regular monitoring of risks and configurations.    

4. Web Application Firewall (WAF)

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Web Application Firewall (OCI WAF) is a complete security solution made to protect online apps from a variety of attacks, such as cross-site scripting (XSS), DDoS attacks, and SQL injection. Web apps can be strengthened to lower the chance of illegal access or data breaches by implementing this robust firewall solution. If merged with OCI Edge Security Services (Traffic Steering and DNS Security), it provides a layered defense approach to safeguard sensitive data.

Learn how Cloud4C experts helped a leading bank enable risk-free in-country compliant operations on Oracle Cloud
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No Threats, Only Triumphs: Cloud4C's Fully Managed OCI Security Services  

"64% of companies do not have consolidated visibility into their operational and production workloads"

The underlying complicated IT ecosystems—excessive legacy assets, non-concurrent third-party systems, and inefficient hybrid and multi-cloud networks—may be a major factor in the rise in threat management concerns. The perfect solution, therefore, is a cloud designed to handle hybrid and multi-cloud situations. Entrusting in Cloud4C's Oracle Cloud Security Services can be a good option hence, particularly when it comes to coordinating a comprehensive cybersecurity plan throughout the IT stack.  

Businesses of all statures can scale operations safely with OCI's granular visibility and control, which is built to comply with robust privacy and security standards. OCI’s centralized managed cybersecurity services or OCI cybersecurity-as-a-service provide risk management visibility across IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and CaaS environments.  

Complimenting this, Cloud4C renders the Oracle Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) with integrated security and compliance standards and offers a reliable Security Operations Center.

OCI security services and management operations for enterprises are completely transformed by Cloud4C’s SHOPTM platform. Strong APIs are utilized to easily connect with Oracle cloud architecture and integrate current platforms, including third-party systems.

Cloud4C has achieved the coveted Cloud Sell and Cloud Service Expertise and is a reputable worldwide Oracle Cloud Transformation Partner, thanks to its full-stack Oracle transformation suite and shown delivery quality.  

Secure Your OCI Cloud – Reach Out to Our Experts 

Frequently Asked Questions:

  • Does OCI Security help with vulnerability scanning?

    -

    Yes. Oracle often provides cloud operations and infrastructure security, including patching for cloud operator access limitations and infrastructure security.

  • Which OCI security service offers user authentication and resource access authorization?

    -

    Identity and Access Management (IAM) analyzes audit logs regularly and checks changes to crucial credentials, and security policies, and provides safe access to an organization’s resources.

  • What is the best way to secure online applications in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure?

    -

    OCI’s security service, Web Application Firewall is a full security solution that secures digital apps from various attacks. By using this strong firewall solution, web apps may be fortified to reduce the likelihood of unauthorized access.

  • What is the role of the Kubernetes Engine?

    -

    A cluster of Docker containers is managed via this service. It offers healing by restarting failing containers and rescheduling them when their hosts die, in addition to automating container deployment and scalability.

  • What are the key security pillars of OCI?

    -

    These security pillars of OCI help businesses understand new threats and protect their architecture – customer isolation, data encryption, security controls, visibility, strong infrastructure, and more.

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Team Cloud4C
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Team Cloud4C

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