Maintaining security compliance across a growing fleet of Oracle Databases has always been a challenge, particularly for organizations juggling cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments. Each environment has unique requirements, and trying to enforce standards like CIS (Center for Internet Security), STIG (Security Technical Implementation Guide), along with unique corporate security policies consistently across dozens, hundreds or even thousands of databases is time-consuming, complex and error-prone. 

That’s why we think Oracle Data Safe’s recent update is such a game-changer. 

With new Data Safe capabilities like target database groups, security assessment templates, and audit profile and security policy management, Data Safe now gives database administrators (DBAs) and security teams the tools they need to help manage database security compliance at fleet scale; quickly, consistently, and with less manual effort. 

Fleet-Wide Compliance: Why It’s Important 

Your organization’s most sensitive, mission-critical data likely lives inside your Oracle databases. But if you’re still configuring and validating security settings one database at a time, potentially writing custom scripts, or relying on third-party tools not tailored for Oracle specifics, you’re not just losing time, you’re increasing risk. 
With the recent Data Safe update, DBAs and security teams can now maintain security standards and monitor compliance across hundreds or thousands of Oracle databases with just a few clicks, saving time and reducing risk. 

With Data Safe, you can now: 

  • Group databases logically by compliance requirements, use cases, or sensitivity of the data. 
  • Apply custom or predefined compliance assessment templates across those groups. 
  • Monitor for drift and trigger alerts when configurations fall out of compliance. 
  • Standardize audit policies across your fleet for consistent monitoring and tracking of database activities. 
  • Automatically assign new databases to the right groups via dynamic criteria like tags or compartments. 

Data Safe is purpose-built to help you maintain and demonstrate security compliance for your databases, no matter where they run. 

Key New Features (And Why They Matter) 

Target Database Groups 

Gone are the days of managing security configuration for each database in isolation. Data Safe’s new target database groups let you organize databases logically: by compliance requirements, data sensitivity or other criteria. Need to apply stricter policies for your production databases? Simply group them and manage as a single unit! 

Bonus: Use dynamic groups so new databases are auto-assigned based on tags or compartments; no manual updates required.  For example, you can automatically group all databases tagged as “PII” into one security-managed group with consistent assessment and auditing. 

Security Assessment Templates: Consistent baselines, tailored checks 

Data Safe offers over 130 security checks out-of-the-box, with Oracle-defined templates for CIS, STIG, GDPR, and recommended practices. You can customize these templates to help meet your specific compliance requirements, and then apply them across any group of databases. Once the baseline is set, Data Safe monitors for drift — saving time, enabling consistency, and helping you act faster.  

Benefit: Set the template once, apply it across your fleet, and tweak it only when necessary. No more starting from scratch or having different policies for different databases. 

Example: Your auditor wants you to enforce CIS benchmark configuration standards for all your SOX-relevant databases. Apply the predefined assessment template for CIS checks and identify non-compliant databases and findings, allowing you to mitigate any configuration drifts. 

Security Policies: Enforcing consistent audit policies 

You can now enable unified audit policies across your entire fleet or in specific database groups. That means you no longer need to write custom scripts or configure audit policies for each database individually. 

Benefit: Consistent monitoring of privileged access and sensitive activity, with far less effort. Making audits a breeze. 

Example: Enforce CIS-related audit policies on all databases that must be CIS compliant. 

Audit Profiles for Target Database Groups 

Define how long audit logs are retained, and adjust based on compliance requirements, database type, or corporate policy.  

Benefit: Compliance made easier, with storage and policy needs in balance. 

Example: Keep audit data longer for production databases with regulated data and shorter for development environments. 

Drift Notification & Response 

Data Safe checks each group against its applied assessment template and baseline, with individual assessments scheduled weekly or daily for each database to monitor compliance drift. If a database drifts out of compliance, OCI event notifications alert your team, so you can quickly investigate and address any potential security gaps. 

Benefit: Allows you to remediate any drift before risk grows. 

Example: You apply the STIG security assessment template to a target group. During a scheduled weekly assessment of one of the group’s databases, a configuration is found to be non-compliant with the STIG standards. An OCI event notification is automatically triggered, alerting the DBA team to the configuration drift so they can investigate and remediate the issue. 

Real-world example: Maintaining CIS compliance for databases with PII 

Consider a financial institution that needs to ensure all their databases containing customer PII are CIS compliant. They use Data Safe to group all those databases into a target database group. A CIS-compliant, Oracle-defined security assessment template is applied at the target group level, with individual weekly assessments scheduled for each database to monitor compliance drift.  
The institution also enforces a predefined security policy on the same group, enabling CIS-relevant audit policies to track and monitor database activity. 
Non-compliant databases are flagged with detailed information on failed checks, and weekly reports are generated for audit and management purposes. 

When a privileged action triggers a preconfigured alert in Data Safe, a notification is generated, prompting the creation of a remediation ticket. Corrective action can be taken immediately, demonstrating both effective responsiveness and strong control over security events. 

Example: When a DBA temporarily grants SELECT ANY TABLE to a service account during a production fix, that change is: 

  • Logged in the audit trail, 
  • Flagged by a preconfigured alert, and 
  • Detected in the next security assessment with a risk finding of “Users with Powerful Roles”. 
  • A notification is triggered. 

They create a remediation ticket. The unauthorized privilege is revoked, and the organization stays compliant. 

This is security automation in action – without the manual overhead. 

Why Oracle Data Safe? 

Designed for Oracle, cutting out complexity 

Unlike third-party security tools, Data Safe is purpose-built for Oracle Databases. That means: 

  • Oracle-specific interpretations of security benchmarks (like CIS and STIG) 
  • Automates deployment of industry-accepted standards 
  • Predefined audit policies and templates designed by Oracle experts 
  • Enables you to easily manage, monitor, and demonstrate compliance 

It’s not just faster—it’s smarter! 

Get started today 

Summary 

If you’re a DBA tasked with security compliance across Oracle databases, Data Safe now lets you: 

  • Group your databases logically 
  • Apply CIS/STIG/custom assessments with reusable templates 
  • Automatically track drift and be alerted 
  • Standardize audit policies across your fleet 
  • Automate dynamic group assignments for new target databases 
  • Save time, reduce risk, and stay audit-ready 

Security at scale shouldn’t be a patchwork of manual checks and scripts. With Data Safe, it doesn’t have to be.