Fixed-scope, 2-week delivery
MariaDB Security Audit — CIS Benchmark, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2
In short: A MariaDB security audit reviews 12 control areas — ed25519 authentication, the MariaDB Audit Plugin, encryption-at-rest, Galera and MaxScale TLS, role-based access, binlog encryption, and CIS Benchmark hardening — then delivers a written report with severity-ranked findings, remediation roadmap, and PCI-DSS / HIPAA / SOC 2 control mapping.
Production MariaDB security audit covering MariaDB Audit Plugin, encryption-at-rest, Galera certification, ed25519 authentication. Written report with severity-ranked findings, compliance-framework control mapping, and a 12-month remediation roadmap. Designed for teams preparing for PCI-DSS v4.0, HIPAA, or SOC 2 Type II audit windows.
JusDB conducts rigorous 12-point zero-trust MariaDB security audits to harden production database estates against unauthorized access, data leaks, and compliance violations. JusDB DBREs enforce ed25519 authentication, configure TLS 1.3 wire encryption, deploy InnoDB Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), and implement MaxScale SQL firewalls mapped to PCI-DSS v4.0.1, HIPAA, and SOC 2 Type II controls.
Audit in 60 days — sound familiar?
- ▸ ed25519 auth plugin not enabled — Still on mysql_native_password; ed25519 (MariaDB's recommended modern auth) requires driver coordination that hasn't happened, and password storage is weaker than required by policy.
- ▸ MariaDB Audit Plugin missing or partial — Audit plugin compiled but not configured for server_audit_events=CONNECT,QUERY,TABLE; you have no record of who read what.
- ▸ Galera Cluster across public network — wsrep_provider_options without socket.ssl=yes; Galera replication traffic crossing cloud network unencrypted. PCI-DSS auditor flagged.
JusDB MariaDB security audit: 2-week assessment + written report mapped to PCI-DSS / HIPAA / SOC 2. Book an audit scoping call →
12 control areas, fully assessed
Every audit covers these MariaDB-specific controls. Findings are severity-ranked (Critical / High / Medium / Low) with remediation effort estimates and compliance-framework mapping.
Every finding mapped to a framework
The audit report includes a control-mapping matrix so your compliance team can hand it directly to an auditor without re-translating the findings.
| Framework | Scope | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| PCI-DSS v4.0 | Cardholder data systems | Encryption-at-rest, TLS for transport, audit logging, access control, vulnerability management |
| HIPAA Security Rule | PHI databases | Access control, encryption, audit logs, integrity validation, transmission security |
| SOC 2 Type II | Customer data systems | Security, availability, confidentiality — continuous control testing over 6+ months |
| ISO 27001:2022 | Information security management | Annex A controls 5.x-8.x covering DB access, cryptography, supplier relationships |
| GDPR Article 32 | EU personal data | Pseudonymisation, encryption, confidentiality, integrity, availability, resilience |
| CIS Database Benchmark | Hardening reference | Engine-specific CIS benchmarks (Level 1 + Level 2) — operational baseline |
5-phase delivery
Kickoff
Scope confirmation, environment access, compliance-framework selection. Day 1.
Assessment
Hands-on review of authentication, encryption, audit logs, access controls. Week 1.
Analysis
Severity-rank findings, compliance-mapping, remediation-effort sizing. Days 8-10.
Report
Written report (30-60 pages), executive summary, control-mapping matrix. Week 2 end.
Handoff
Findings walkthrough with engineering + compliance teams, remediation roadmap.
How JusDB MariaDB Security Audit compares to alternative models.
Generic compliance auditors and legacy database contractors lack deep MariaDB authentication internals, InnoDB TDE cryptographic verification, and MaxScale Layer-7 firewall defense. Here is how our MariaDB DBRE security auditors compare:
| Evaluation Vector | JusDB DBRE | In-House DBA | Legacy Agency | Developer Generalist |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ed25519 & PAM Multi-Factor Authentication Architecture | Enforces modern ed25519 elliptic-curve authentication plugins with PAM/LDAP directory integration, mandatory password complexity, and automated brute-force account locking policies. | Remains on deprecated mysql_native_password authentication without MFA, exposing passwords to offline rainbow table attacks. | Uses shared generic root accounts across engineering teams with no multi-factor authentication or rotation schedules. | Uses blank or trivial administrative passwords, storing database connection credentials directly in git repositories. |
| TLS 1.3 Transport Encryption & Certificate Lifecycle | Mandates require_secure_transport=ON, restricts cipher suites to TLS 1.3, secures Galera wsrep and MaxScale links, and automates mTLS certificate renewal via ACME/Cert-Manager. | Permits unencrypted plaintext TCP connections on local subnets; leaves replication streams and client traffic unencrypted across private clouds. | Deploys self-signed certificates with expired validity dates, suppressing TLS warnings across application connection pools. | Disables SSL in client connection strings (sslMode=DISABLED) to bypass certificate verification errors in staging and production. |
| Data-at-Rest Encryption (InnoDB TDE) & Key Management (KMS) | Configures InnoDB Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) for tablespaces, redo logs, undo logs, and binary logs with envelope encryption integrated into AWS KMS, HashiCorp Vault, or file_key_management. | Relies solely on underlying storage disk encryption (EBS/LUKS), leaving backup archives, binlogs, and temporary tables vulnerable to cold extraction. | Leaves tablespaces completely unencrypted; stores static encryption keys in plaintext config files with 0777 filesystem permissions. | Ignores encryption-at-rest; stores credit card or PHI data in plaintext database tables without column or tablespace encryption. |
| Fine-Grained RBAC Privilege Minimization & Superuser Revocation | Enforces strict Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) with least-privilege grants, removes wildcard host '%' bindings, and revokes global SUPER, FILE, and PROCESS privileges from application users. | Grants broad ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* to microservice users to prevent runtime permission errors during deployment releases. | Fails to audit dormant contractor accounts; grants admin privileges directly to personal developer email identities. | Connects every application service directly as the 'root' database user with full schema drop and privilege manipulation powers. |
| MaxScale Database Firewall (dbfwfilter) SQL Injection Defense | Implements MaxScale L7 Database Firewall (dbfwfilter) with strict query whitelisting, regex rule blocking, SQL injection prevention, and query rate limiting at the proxy layer. | Relies entirely on application-level ORM parameterization without database-tier firewall defense or runtime query pattern inspection. | Disables proxy filtering due to performance concerns, allowing raw uninspected SQL injection vectors to reach backend databases. | Constructs raw SQL queries via string concatenation in web services, exposing tables to classic SQL injection attacks. |
| Immutable MariaDB Audit Plugin Logging to SIEM (SOC 2/HIPAA) | Configures MariaDB Audit Plugin with JSON formatting, fine-grained event filtering (CONNECT, QUERY, TABLE), log rotation, and tamper-proof streaming to Datadog/Splunk for SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance. | Enables verbose general log logging to local disk, saturating storage IOPS and causing catastrophic cluster crashes during peak traffic. | Disables audit logging entirely to save disk space, failing compliance audits during annual SOC 2 or PCI-DSS reviews. | Has no audit trail or query logging; unable to detect unauthorized data exfiltration or identify compromised user accounts. |
Critical MariaDB Vulnerabilities We Eliminate
Production MariaDB deployments face catastrophic compliance and data breach exposure when over-privileged service accounts execute arbitrary code, unencrypted transaction logs leak cardholder data, or unthrottled audit logging exhausts storage I/O. Our DBREs eliminate these vulnerability modes:
Global SUPER Privileges Permitting Arbitrary Code Execution
Granting administrative SUPER privileges to microservices or application accounts permits execution of binary log manipulations, user impersonation, dynamic variable reconfiguration, and loadable UDF code execution.
JusDB conducts privilege surface audits, revokes global SUPER in favor of granular MariaDB administrative roles (BINLOG ADMIN, REPLICATION CLIENT), and implements least-privilege schemas across all application accounts.
Unencrypted Redo Logs Exposing Sensitive Data in Backups
Enabling tablespace encryption without configuring innodb_encrypt_log and innodb_encrypt_temporary_tables leaves unencrypted sensitive transactions inside InnoDB redo logs, undo tablespaces, and on-disk temporary sorting files.
JusDB enforces comprehensive InnoDB Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) encompassing tables, redo logs (innodb_encrypt_log=ON), undo logs, and temporary tables backed by secure KMS or file key management plugins.
High-Volume Audit Logging Saturating Disk IOPS
Enabling unrestricted MariaDB Audit Plugin capturing on high-QPS production instances writes massive synchronous log events to local storage, saturating disk write IOPS and triggering server-wide connection queuing.
JusDB configures server_audit_events filtering to isolate CONNECT and DDL/DML mutations on sensitive tables, implements asynchronous ring-buffer logging, and pipes audit streams directly to SIEM ingestion endpoints.
Our database security engineers execute non-blocking audit queries to verify user account authentication plugins, TLS cipher enforcement, and tablespace encryption coverage:
Audits all database user accounts, active authentication plugins, empty passwords, and password expiration status to eliminate weak credentials.
-- Audit database users, authentication plugins, and password hygiene
SELECT User, Host, plugin, password_expired, authentication_string = '' as empty_password FROM mysql.user WHERE User NOT IN ('mariadb.sys', 'mysql');Validates strict TLS transport requirement, negotiated wire ciphers, and scans InnoDB tablespaces for unencrypted data files.
# Verify secure transport, SSL status, cipher suite, and unencrypted InnoDB tablespaces mysql -e "SHOW GLOBAL VARIABLES LIKE 'require_secure_transport'; SHOW GLOBAL VARIABLES LIKE 'have_ssl'; SHOW GLOBAL STATUS LIKE 'Ssl_cipher';"; mysql -e "SELECT space, name, encryption FROM information_schema.innodb_tablespaces WHERE encryption != 'Y';"
Common questions
Audit window approaching?
Get a written MariaDB security audit mapped to your compliance framework in 2 weeks.
Hardening specific layers? See Galera Cluster TLS & replication and MaxScale proxy hardening.