Guardium upgrade aims to block rogue DBAs

Guardium announced it is adding an agent to its database monitoring and audit software so that security managers can place tight controls on what "privileged users," including database administrators, are allowed to do.

Guardium's add-on to its S-Tap software, dubbed S-Gate, runs on any database server, says Phil Neray, vice president of marketing at Guardium. "You don't want your average database administrator to create accounts or change accounts," Neray says.

A number of publicized data-breach disclosures linked to insider attacks, including the one made by the Certegy division of Fidelity National Information Services last year, have highlighted the damage that a rogue database administrator can do through abuse of power.

Guardium's S-Gate, which is expected to be available at the end of June, would block privileged users based on detailed controls, not just flag activities with a warning to the security manager. "Until now, we've only monitored the privileged user traffic, but now we're going to block it," Neray says.

The feature is limited to blocking privileged users who attempt unauthorized access, not others accessing the database. The blocking feature is being added to the Guardium monitoring system, which includes an appliance that stores policy and audit information.

The Guardium system for database monitoring starts at $25,000.