The Challenge
A multi-year Spinnaker Support customer, that runs Oracle Database 11g, required a security fix. Spinnaker Support’s proactive threat monitoring service identified an unspecified vulnerability that could potentially impact the Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) component within the customer’s Oracle Sun Systems Product Suite. This specific vulnerability could allow remote attackers to adversely affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability by granting unauthorized elevated privileges. The vulnerability was rated at the maximum risk level of 10.0. With no further access to Oracle security patches, the customer required an immediate solution from Spinnaker Support.
The Approach
The Spinnaker Support security and vulnerability solution is designed to protect the full technology stack, of which the database is a component. This approach is superior to a reactive Oracle patch because the vulnerability is detected and addressed before the database firewall is breached.
The Oracle solution for this specific security vulnerability would have required application of a critical patch update containing 153 new security fixes across numerous product families – most of which were not relevant for this customer. These large patch sets are intrusive to the product code and require customers to complete testing and validation before promoting across customer environments, wasting valuable time.
The Solution
The mitigation solution implemented by Spinnaker Support prevented access to the customer’s system via a firewall. ILOM access can now be managed at the firewall level by controlling access and limiting only approved IP addresses on an as-needed basis. The solution was completely tested and implemented within a three day window, which was months before the patch set was eventually delivered by Oracle.
The Results
The security and vulnerability solution implemented by Spinnaker Support was successful and is still fully operational today. This customer has suffered no breaches since switching to Spinnaker Support, who now monitors ILOM access on a continuous basis as part of a full stack security solution. The customer greatly benefits from having a single vendor covering both application support and full technology stack security protection.