Andy, I will disagree that it is absurd for Oracle to allow a means for a
'privileged' user to be able to change another's users password hash because
without such a method how would an existing user with their existing password
be migrated to another database?
________________________________
From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf
of Andy Klock <andy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, July 7, 2016 9:32:56 AM
To: Chris Taylor
Cc: dimensional.dba@xxxxxxxxxxx; Mladen Gogala; oracle-l
Subject: Re: Passwords in DBA_USERS (Oracle 12c)
All your points are valid Chris. My absurdity comment is about the Oracle
software allowing someone to log into someone else's account and then reset the
password back to its previous state. This is a gaping security hole that should
be filled. Removing PASSWORD from DICTIONARY access was a step in the right
direction. Those hashes shouldn't be considered unbreakable.
Didn't meant to imply that the Mladen was doing anything wrong.
On Thu, Jul 7, 2016 at 9:16 AM, Chris Taylor
<christopherdtaylor1994@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:christopherdtaylor1994@xxxxxxxxx>>
wrote:
Having the password "somewhere" is important so I'm not sure if Andy is
suggesting it's absurd to have it anywhere in the database or not. But for at
least one case it's terribly important and that is supporting legacy
applications.
Sometimes you need to be able to login as an application schema to create an
object such as a materialized view or database link that is either
exceptionally difficult or impossible to do UNLESS you are logged in as the
schema owner.
The DBA may not have access to the schema password but can preserve the
password by looking at sys.user$ for the encrypted password, temporarily change
it, create the object (db link or MV), then change the password back without
ever affecting the application (or briefly affecting the application at least).
Thanks,
Chris
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