rSTAR’s Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Security Assessment 

rSTAR has recently expanded its solutions to include a cybersecurity practice, drawing on over twenty years of experience as a platinum partner of system integration platforms and a strategic partnership with a leading cybersecurity company. We provide an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure security assessment solution that merges our extensive industry knowledge in Oracle and cybersecurity to help our clients uncover hidden risks, strengthen security measures, and stay compliant. 

This article explores why such an assessment is critical, what a comprehensive review covers, and how our three-step process delivers unparalleled security insights. 

Why Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Security Assessment is Critical 

Enterprises should prioritize securing their Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. As cloud environments evolve, so do the threats. Modern businesses face various risks—from unauthorized access and data leaks to non-compliance with regulations like GDPR and industry-specific standards. An effective security assessment can be the difference between proactive protection and reactive crisis management. 

Many companies treat security as an afterthought, focusing on other priorities until a breach occurs. Similarly, some businesses fail to understand what constitutes a security risk, leaving them exposed. Typically, everything looks safe, but with a security assessment, these organizations discover they lack key security measures and are at risk. For instance, overly permissive entitlements leaves systems vulnerable to unauthorized access. Data leaks can occur if proper controls aren’t in place, while a lack of visibility into your security posture can further complicate risk management. 

An OCI security assessment highlights these critical gaps. It offers a clear view of your current state security posture, uncovers vulnerabilities in your configurations, and outlines steps for remediation. This proactive approach minimizes the risk of breaches and establishes a foundation for continuous security improvement, which is essential in an increasingly regulated environment. 

What a Comprehensive Oracle Cloud Security Review Typically Covers 

A thorough Oracle Cloud security review addresses several key areas of concern. Our assessment framework at rSTAR Technologies focuses on core domains that build the foundation for a strong security posture.   

• • Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC): Proper alignment to required compliance and organizational requirements is important to ensure strong cloud security posture management. 

• • Identity and Access Management (IAM): Excessive user privileges can increase the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches. 

• • Network and Infrastructure Security: Wide open networks can expose the cloud infrastructure to potential exploitation. 

• • Data Protection: Sensitive data needs to be secured not only for compliance purposes but to protect your organization’s intellectual property and competitive advantage. 

• • Monitoring: Poor visibility into the environment through inadequate logging and alerting can reduce the ability to detect and respond to security incidents in a timely manner. 

• • Operations: rSTAR understands traditional operations models along with modern cloud architecture.  Security needs to be an enabler and rSTAR’s process ensures your business remains competitive while reducing risks. 

Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) 

The nature of today’s regulatory landscape has made aligning with industry standards critical. A robust review evaluates how well your security controls map to established frameworks like CSA CCM, ISO 27001, and NIST 800-53. We use tools like Oracle Enterprise Governance, Risk, Compliance Manager (EGRCM), Oracle Advanced Controls, and our understanding of modern architectures to assess your compliance posture. This evaluation ensures that your organization meets legal requirements and industry best practices, reducing the risk of costly non-compliance penalties and reputational damage. 

Identity and Access Management (IAM) 

Access management in a cloud environment is crucial. A security review examines your OCI Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies and role-based access controls to ensure that only authorized users can access sensitive data and critical functions. A well-defined access governance model minimizes the risk of insider threats and accidental data exposure. Our assessment evaluates your current permissions setup and recommends tightening access controls while maintaining operational efficiency. 

Network and Infrastructure Security 

Cloud infrastructure forms the backbone of any digital operations. An effective security review looks at the safeguards around your OCI environment, including the Secure Landing Zone, network security measures, host security protocols, and the OCI management plane. With increasing reliance on AI and data analytics, ensuring data is protected at rest and in transit is more important than ever. Our assessment identifies vulnerabilities in your network configurations, host settings, and overall infrastructure security. The goal is to help you mitigate risks before someone exploits them. 

Data Protection 

Data protection is a critical component of cloud security in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) because it safeguards your organization’s most valuable asset—its data—from unauthorized access, corruption, or loss. rSTAR’s assessment services provide a comprehensive evaluation of your OCI data protection controls by examining encryption configurations for all storage types, validating key management practices in OCI Vault, reviewing data classification implementations through tagging policies, assessing Object Storage bucket visibility settings, and evaluating database security controls. 

Monitoring 

Continuous monitoring is vital for security. So, an extensive assessment of logging and monitoring capabilities in OCI is essential. This review includes an evaluation of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring, Logging, and Logging Analytics, as well as OCI Events and Cloud Guard. These provide real-time insights into system performance and security incidents—insights that can help you quickly detect unusual activities and respond to potential threats. Our approach ensures that your monitoring setup is robust, enabling proactive incident management and reducing response times. 

Operations 

Understanding modern architectures and operations patterns is key to ensuring your OCI environment is secure while still enabling the business.  Our unique combination of deep OCI platform expertise and DevOps processes enables us to partner with your security and cloud teams.  Traditional assessment methods approach OCI assessments with generic cloud knowledge, our team understands the nuanced architecture patterns, service interactions, and operational realities of OCI environments from years of hands-on implementation.  

rSTAR’s Three-Step Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Security Assessment Process 

rSTAR’s assessment process is built on three core steps designed to provide a holistic view of your security posture and deliver actionable recommendations. 

Step 1: Capture Current State 

The first step involves a detailed evaluation of your current Oracle Cloud environment. Our experts utilize industry-standard methods to document existing security controls across IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. This phase thoroughly assesses the security measures in place and identifies areas where your setup may fall short. The exercise covers people, processes, and technology, laying the groundwork for a complete security review. Capturing the current state helps you gain a clear picture of your strengths and vulnerabilities. 

Step 2: Assess and Review 

Once the current state is documented, rSTAR’s Oracle and cybersecurity experts thoroughly assess the findings. We evaluate each security control for its criticality and difficulty level, with high, medium, or low ratings. Leveraging the Cloud Security Alliance’s Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM), the team communicates the findings in terms of both risk and technology. This stage transforms raw data into strategic insights, highlighting which vulnerabilities need immediate attention and which can be remedied over time. The results provide a prioritized roadmap, empowering organizations to tackle security challenges systematically. 

Step 3: Recommendations 

In the final step, our team prepares a thorough list of recommendations tailored to your specific environment. These recommendations focus on high-value, high-return projects that address the most critical risks identified in the assessment. We present the recommendations using a risk-based approach, ensuring we secure the most impactful vulnerabilities first. This final phase not only offers technical guidance but also strategic advice on how to improve overall security governance. With our recommendations, our clients achieve a more secure and compliant Oracle Cloud environment.