Oracle announced an expanded set of capabilities for its cloud security portfolio on Dec. 11, providing enhanced identity and configuration services to help protect against threats.
The new capabilities extend the Oracle Identity Security Operations Center (SOC) that was first announced at the Gartner IAM (Identity and Access Management) conference in 2016. The system will now provide automated identity governance capabilities for cloud environments.
“The new service announced is built from the ground up for identity governance but consumes application risk information from the Oracle CASB [Cloud Access Security Broker] Cloud Service,” Subbu Iyer, senior director of product management at Oracle, told eWEEK. “The new service also has artificial intelligence capabilities to improve governance workflows, such as predicting applications that a user might need access to based on peer learning intelligence.”
The automated identity governance capability can automatically factor in the risk of the application for which access is being requested by the user, according to Iyer. The organization can consider the risk information prior to approving or denying the request.
“By factoring in application risk at the time of approvals, enterprises can identify or mitigate risks earlier than current processes,” Iyer said.
The Oracle CASB Cloud Service, which helps provide application risk information to the new automated identity service capability, is built on technology that Oracle gained via the acquisition of CASB vendor Palerra in September 2016. Iyer said the Palerra CASB technology has evolved considerably in the year since the acquisition.
The Palerra technology, now sold as Oracle CASB, has benefited from expanded visibility and monitoring for Oracle SaaS applications, he said. In addition, Oracle CASB now supports data leakage prevention with inspection capability for sensitive or confidential data patterns.
“We have also strengthened the UEBA [User and Entity Behavior Analytics] capabilities of the product to incorporate real-time risk from the user’s session to make access control decisions,” Iyer said.
Configuration Management
Oracle also introduced new capabilities in its Oracle Configuration and Compliance Cloud Service that automatically discover configuration settings. The automatic configuration management service can help organizations detect misconfigurations that could lead to security policy violations and cyber-risk. Iyer said the automatic configuration service makes use of machine learning technology that was developed by Oracle.
Oracle has been ramping up its machine learning capabilities in recent months to help organizations automate security. At the Oracle OpenWorld event on Oct. 3, the company announced security analytics and autonomous database services, both of which make use of Oracle machine learning capabilities.
“Our emphasis on artificial intelligence and automation being the core pillars for building next-generation security analytics is resonating with customers,” Iyer said. “Customers see machine learning intelligence as the means to the end to mitigate challenges associated with insufficient people resources, outdated processes and legacy technology in traditional Security Operations Centers.”
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.