Probing for Vulnerabilities to Harden SQL Server

What's a nice network-security company like Fortinet doing moving to the database security arena? "AV and IDS, to us that's kind of old hat. Network security has evolved," says Fortinet's Jason Wright, a product manager with the network security provider. Given recent data breaches in the news, he says, "Once you've secured the network, you look to the database to apply more security to." Which is why Fortinet has entered the database security arena with its FortiDB-1000B vulnerability assessment appliance.

The FortiDB-1000B device, which uses technology Fortinet acquired this year from IPLocks, probes, scans, and assesses security in databases on a network, looking at configuration, access levels, passwords, and policies in search of security holes and vulnerabilities. It supports 30 different databases and provides reports and remediation advice based on regulatory compliance requirements and security best practices. It uses its own hardened Forti OS, and IPLocks technology, and because it's agent-less, it doesn't affect database performance. It supports SQL Server 2005 databases as well as Oracle, DB2, and Sybase databases.  Support for SQL Server 2008 is also planned, says George Csaba, Fortinet's director of system engineering, and the company also plans to branch out from the mid-sized enterprise to scale up and down to meet the needs of varying sizes of companies.

"We've seen a lot of security solutions start as software but move to an appliance," Wright says. "This makes it easier to deploy and use." Rather than managing three or four boxes, Wright says, Fortinet combines multiple security products on one box. He adds that the move to database security was a natural expansion and that medium and large enterprise customers requested that the company offer a database security solution.

The appliance costs $20,000, which includes hardware and bundled services (repair, replacement, and updates), and supports up to 30 databases. Learn more.