Oracle Cloud Security Checklist
If your organization runs critical workloads in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), you know security compliance is non-negotiable. This Oracle Cloud Security Checklist can help you get ready for your next audit. Whether you’re preparing for a formal audit, aligning with compliance requirements, or just taking control of your cloud security posture, a proactive OCI security audit is a smart place to start.
We help enterprises navigate complex cloud security challenges every day. This article breaks down essential steps you can take to pass an audit and protect your systems against real-world attacks in an easily digestible Oracle Cloud Security Checklist. Here’s what we recommend reviewing:
Publicly Accessible Resources, That Don’t Need To Be Public
Too often we find compute instances, databases, or internal storage exposed to the public internet unnecessarily. We frequently find databases, application servers, and internal tools that are deployed in public subnets, when they have no requirement to be exposed to the internet.
The Fix: Move as many systems to private subnets as possible. Use Network Security Groups (NSGs), Web Application Firewalls (WAF), and Load Balancers to tightly control traffic to private networks. Audit public IP assignments and remove where not needed.
Object Storage Buckets with Public Access
Yes, it still happens. Publicly accessible Object Storage buckets can expose confidential data. In OCI, Object Storage buckets are private by default, but it’s just so easy to store a file in Object Storage and forget to clean up afterwards.
The Fix: Enable Cloud Guard and use it to detect and respond to security issues in Object Storage. Use Security Zone Policies to deny all buckets in a compartment from being made public. If you must give access to a user without OCI IAM access, use a pre-authenticated request (PAR) with an expiration date.
Oracle Database Exposure and Misconfiguration
OCI Oracle Databases (DBCS) are much different than on-premise Oracle databases, and require new security controls not familiar to DBAs that are new to OCI. The DBCS is more complex, and restrictive than on-premise Oracle Databases but when configured properly can provide a lot of benefits.
The Fix: It’s far too easy to provision an OCI Database with a public IP address, which will make it accessible on the Internet. Only provision Oracle Databases in private subnets, and restrict access using Network Security Groups, Routing, and private endpoints. Enable Data Safe for audit trails, user risk scoring, and sensitive data discovery. Ensure TDE (Transparent Data Encryption) is enabled and keys are managed via OCI Vault. Patching Oracle Databases in OCI is vastly different than on-premise databases, and DBAs new to OCI should reserve extra time for training and learning this process in OCI so they can keep these databases patched.
IAM Misconfigurations
OCI Dynamic Groups are a great tool for automating permissions to workloads, but oftentimes create permission creep. Overly permissive policies, orphaned users, and poor role design are common findings in any IAM policy audit in OCI.
The Fix: Ensure least privilege by automating auditing of dynamic groups, policies, and user roles. Eliminate unused accounts and long lived credentials. Use compartment-level access controls with conditional access instead of root tenancy permissions.
Lack of Centralized Logging and Monitoring
Auditors will expect a full trail of user activity, API calls, system events, and workload logs. We often find logging fragmented, or worse, incomplete.
The Fix: Enable OCI Audit logs, VCN Flow logs, and OCI Service logs. If you don’t have an existing SIEM to ingest these logs, use OCI Logging Analytics for centralized visibility. Set alerts for suspicious behavior (e.g., identity policy changes, failed login attempts, data egress, data privacy level changes, etc.).
Additional Tip for Oracle Cloud Security
Oracle Cloud offers two great services for improving security: Security Zones and Cloud Guard. However these services are not enabled by default, and you need to enable and configure them. Security Zone policies ensure cloud resources stay secure and prevent security misconfigurations. OCI Cloud Guard monitors security configurations and findings can trigger alert notifications and remediations.
Getting ahead of security risks in OCI isn’t just about passing audits, it’s about protecting your organization’s data, reputation, and operations. We’ve spent over a decade helping enterprises harden their cloud environments and this Oracle Cloud Security Checklist provides some high value recommendations to get started. Our experienced team can help you protect your OCI environment against real-world attack scenarios, as well as bring your systems into alignment with security best practices and industry frameworks. Contact us to schedule a free consultation or learn more about our OCI Security Configuration Reviews.
