Sentrigo’s Hedgehog Secures Databases, Prevents Insider Threats

Free, downloadable, host-based database security monitoring solution

• By James E. Powell
• 06/18/2007

Sentrigo, Inc. today released Hedgehog. Supporting Oracle databases on multiple operating systems, the software can be freely downloaded and protects against breaches by company insiders and hackers alike, as well as providing virtual patching against known vulnerabilities. The company says Hedgehog is the “first product specifically designed to combat data breaches caused by insiders with access privileges -- including employees, developers and consultants.”

“The vast majority of organizations today -- including those in financial services, government, health care, education, and retail -- have very little visibility into what’s going on in their databases,” said Nathan Shuchami, chief executive officer of Sentrigo, in a company-issued statement. “True database security must happen at the object level. This is the only approach that can provide protection with the required degree of granularity to detect and prevent breaches by insiders.”

Sentrigo says it designed Hedgehog to address the unique challenges of database security and provide a solution that can be “readily evaluated, obtained, installed, and configured.”

Hedgehog is available in two versions that offer risk-free trials. Hedgehog Standard (free) can be downloaded and used indefinitely. Hedgehog Enterprise ($2,000 per CPU) adds centralized management of multiple database alerts, prevention capabilities, and integration with network and security management systems. Trials and downloads are available at http://www.sentrigo.com.

Hedgehog uses sensors on the database host to monitor all transactions in real time. Furthermore, Hedgehog uses regularly updated rules to guard against attempted vulnerability exploits, including newly discovered vulnerabilities. The company says that “Hedgehog’s virtual patching provides immediate protection, with no need to invest efforts in system configuration or custom rules.”

Hedgehog uses a rules-based engine so administrators can set rules for database monitoring down to the object level. The rules can prevent false-positive alerts; alerts can be sent when a potential intrusion is detected; Hedgehog can immediately terminate the user session at that time.

The company says Hedgehog has negligible impact on performance.

Hedgehog Enterprise and Standard support Oracle databases on Unix and Linux platforms. Microsoft Windows support is planned for delivery in the next quarter, and support for other database platforms, starting with Microsoft SQL Server, will be released later this summer.