Answer questions Who, What , When and Where about any database activity by setting up an Oracle audit. The infrastructure is free and available in every database edition. Stay on top of any possible performance and storage issues by choosing appropriate audit parameters. Build summary and detail reports to analyze audit events from multiple databases using APEX or SQL*Plus. Setup a data retention period and cleanup audit records regularly. Create honeypot to attract hacker’s attention. Enable alerts and send email notifications using Oracle Enterprise Manager infrastructure.

1. Oracle audit and reporting in one hour or
less.
UGF9157
Prepared by:
Leon Rzhemovskiy
Database Architect
UnikaSolution.com

2. Learning Objectives
2
 Answer questions Who, What , When and Where
about any database activity by setting up an Oracle
audit. The infrastructure is free and available in every
database edition.
 Stay on top of any possible performance and storage
issues by choosing appropriate audit parameters.
 Build summary and detail reports to analyze audit
events from multiple databases using APEX or
SQL*Plus.
 Setup a data retention period and cleanup audit
records regularly.
 Create honeypot to attract hacker’s attention.
 Enable alerts and send email notifications using
Oracle Enterprise Manager infrastructure.

3. Monitoring Infrastructure
3

4. Enabling Auditing
4
Database auditing is enabled and disabled by the
AUDIT_TRAIL parameter in the database
initialization parameter file. Unfortunately, audit_trail
is not a dynamic parameter and as a result,
requires a database reboot. To enable the audit,
execute the following SQL commands as sysdba:
 ALTER SYSTEM SET audit_trail=db_extended
SCOPE=SPFILE;
 SHUTDOWN immediate;
 STARTUP;
Verify the audit value by executing
SELECT VALUE FROM V$PARAMETER WHERE
NAME='audit_trail';

5. Auditing options
5
Audit policy is controlled by setting up options based on the
statement, privilege, object and network level.
AUDIT and NOAUDIT statements are used to set up auditing
settings.
Following views could be used to display auditing settings:
 DBA_PRIV_AUDIT_OPTS;
 DBA_STMT_AUDIT_OPTS;
 DBA_OBJ_AUDIT_OPTS;
To remove all audit settings on the statement and privilege level
execute
 NOAUDIT ALL PRIVILEGES;
 NOAUDIT ALL;

6. Auditing Options Setup
6
The auditing event’s frequency impacts database performance and
storage. The number of auditing options varies between database
versions.
You can setup auditing options by running oracle recommended
RDBMS/admin/secconf.sql.
In my opinion, it is more beneficial to start from auditing everything
available and reduce/modify auditing options if needed.
 AUDIT ALL PRIVILEGES WHENEVER SUCCESSFUL;
 AUDIT ALL WHENEVER SUCCESSFUL;
 NOAUDIT CREATE SESSION;
 AUDIT CREATE SESSION WHENEVER NOT SUCCESSFUL;
 NOAUDIT SELECT ANY TABLE;
 NOAUDIT SELECT ANY SEQUENCE;
 NOAUDIT INSERT ANY TABLE;
 NOAUDIT DELETE ANY TABLE;
 NOAUDIT UPDATE ANY TABLE;
 NOAUDIT EXECUTE ANY PROCEDURE;

7. Audit Reporting
7
Audit entries are stored in SYS.AUD$ table and usually are accessed
using DBA_AUDIT_TRAIL view. For every entry, the user name,
timestamp, connection origin, action performed and even SQL
statement is recorded.
You can use TOAD, SQLDeveloper to browse audit records.
SQL*Plus could be used to generate html output. The following is a
sample:
SET MARKUP HTML ON
spool summary.html
SELECT TRUNC(TIMESTAMP) "Date" ,COUNT(1) "Count Audit Entries"
FROM dba_audit_trail
WHERE TIMESTAMP BETWEEN TRUNC(SYSDATE,'MON') AND
SYSDATE
GROUP BY TRUNC(TIMESTAMP)
ORDER BY TRUNC(TIMESTAMP) DESC;
exit;

8. Audit reporting using APEX demo
8

9. Audit reporting using APEX demo
9

10. Audit reporting using APEX demo
10

11. Audit reporting using APEX demo
11

12. Audit reporting using APEX demo
12

13. Audit reporting using APEX demo
13

14. Audit Cleanup
14
The simplest (but not recommended by Oracle) option is
TRUNCATE TABLE sys.aud$;
If you are running 11g, then use the following solution:
-- init cleanup
BEGIN
DBMS_AUDIT_MGMT.INIT_CLEANUP(
AUDIT_TRAIL_TYPE => DBMS_AUDIT_MGMT.AUDIT_TRAIL_AUD_STD,
DEFAULT_CLEANUP_INTERVAL => 720 /*hours*/ );
END;
/
-- set timestamp to purge data 30+ days old
BEGIN
DBMS_AUDIT_MGMT.set_last_archive_timestamp(
audit_trail_type => DBMS_AUDIT_MGMT.AUDIT_TRAIL_AUD_STD,
last_archive_time => SYSTIMESTAMP-30);
END;
/
-- cleanup job. Should be scheduled to execute daily
BEGIN
DBMS_AUDIT_MGMT.clean_audit_trail(
audit_trail_type => DBMS_AUDIT_MGMT.AUDIT_TRAIL_AUD_STD,
use_last_arch_timestamp => TRUE);
END;
/

15. Setup alerts and email notifications
15
Login to Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c
Navigate to Enterprise-> Monitoring -> Metric Extensions -> Action -> Create

16. Setup alerts and email notifications
16

17. Honeypot Setup
17
Create a table with an intriguing name and then monitor any attempt
to select data from this table. Setup the Metric Extension and email
notifications in Enterprise Manager to react on unauthorized actions
immediately.
CREATE TABLE CUSTOMER_CREDIT_CARDS(
Customer_no number(16),
Credit_Card_No number(16),
Credit_Card_Exp varchar2(4));
GRANT SELECT ON CUSTOMER_CREDIT_CARDS TO PUBLIC;
CREATE PUBLIC SYNONYM CUSTOMER_CREDIT_CARDS FOR
CUSTOMER_CREDIT_CARDS;
AUDIT SELECT ON CUSTOMER_CREDIT_CARDS;

18. Conclusion
18
There is no excuse to avoid setting up an Audit Trail. You will get an
enormous value for expending very little effort. You can utilize APEX
application or any SQL client to browse Oracle audit entries. You can
react immediately on unauthorized activities by setting up Enterprise
Manager metric extensions and email notifications.