Database Security

 

Database Security

Data is a very valuable entity for firms these days. The security of this data is very important as it may have tactical importance to the organizations. The loss of data can be very problematic for the firms. This is where the Database Security is needed. We will discuss all aspects of Database Security in this blog.

 

What is Database Security?

Database Security is the technique using which you can protect and secure your database against intentional or accidental threats. The programs for Database security are designed to not only protect the data but also the data management system itself. Database security includes hardware parts, software parts, human resources, and data. Theft & fraudulent, loss of data privacy etc. are some of the areas in which the firms should focus on, to reduce the chances of incurring damage to data within a database. In some conditions, the areas are connected causing a chain-reaction of damages as everything is connected in firms.

 

What is a Threat?

If any situation due to which an adverse effect occurs on the database causing damage to the organization, and an individual takes action on the firm, this may result in threats to the company. Threats are very dangerous for a company as damages might occur to it in various ways.

The degree that a firm undergoes as a result of a threat, depends aspects such as the existence of countermeasures and contingency plans.

Common threats and challenges:

Insider Threats

An insider threat is a security risk from one of the three sources, each of which has privileged means of entry to the database:

·       A malicious insider with ill-intent

·       A negligent person within the firm who exposes the database to attack through careless actions

·       An outsider who obtains credentials through social engineering or gains access to the database’s credentials.

 

An insider threat is one of the most common causes of security breaches as a lot of employees have been granted privileged user access.

Why is it important?

By definition, a data breach is a failure to maintain the structure of data in a database. The amount of harm a data breach inflicts on your firm depends on these factors:

Compromised intellectual property: Your intellectual property trade secrets, inventions etc. may be critical for your ability to maintain a competitive advantage in your market. If that property is stolen or exposed, your competitive advantage may be difficult or impossible to maintain or recover.

Damage to brand reputation: Customers or partners may be unwilling to buy your products or services if they don’t feel they can trust you to protect your data or theirs.

Business continuity: Some business cannot continue to operate until a breach is resolved.

Costs of repairing breaches and notifying customers: In addition to the cost of communicating a breach to customer, a breached organization must pay for forensic and investigative activities, crisis management, repair of the affected systems, and more.

Best practices:

As databases are nearly accessible on the network, a security threat to any component or portion of the infrastructure is also a threat to the database, and any attack impacting the device of the user can also be threats to the database. Thus, database security must extend beyond the boundaries of the database alone.

When evaluating database security in your environment, consider each of the following areas:

·       Physical security: Whether your database server is on-premise or during a cloud data center, it must be located within a secure, climate-controlled environment.

·       Administrative and network access controls: Minimum number of users should have access to the database, and their permissions should be restricted to the minimum levels necessary for them to try to do their jobs.

·       Database software security: Always use the newest version of your database software, and apply all patches as soon as they're issued.

·       App/web server security: Any application or web server that interacts with the database is often a channel for attack and should be subject to ongoing security testing.

·       Backup security: All backups, copies, or images of the database must be subject to the identical security controls as the database itself.

·       Auditing: Record all logins to the database server and OS, and log all operations performed on sensitive data also. Database security audits should be performed regularly.

 

Data protection tools and platforms

Today, a lot of vendors offer data protection tools and platforms. A full-scale solution should include the following capabilities:

Discovery: search for a tool that can scan for and classify vulnerabilities across all your databases and offers recommendations for remediating any vulnerability identified.

Data activity monitoring: the answer should be able to monitor and audit all data activities across all databases, no matter whether your deployment is on-premise, within the cloud, or during a container. It should provide you with a warning to suspicious activities in real-time so that you can respond to threats more quickly. You’ll also need a solution that can enforce rules, policies, and separation of duties which offers visibility into the status of your data through a comprehensive and unified user interface. ensure that any solution you choose can generate the reports you’ll need to meet compliance requirements.

 

Encryption and tokenization capabilities: just in case of a breach, encryption offers a final line of defense against compromise. Any tool you select should include flexible encryption capabilities that can safeguard data in on-premise, cloud, hybrid, or multi-cloud environments. Search for a tool with file, volume, and application encryption capabilities that conform to your industry’s compliance requirements, which can demand tokenization (data masking) or advanced security key management capabilities.

 

Data security optimization and Risk Analysis: A tool which will generate contextual insights by combining data security information with advanced analytics will enable you to accomplish optimization, risk analysis, and reporting with ease. Choose an answer that can retain and synthesize large quantities of historical and recent data about the status and security of your databases, and appearance for one that offers data exploration, auditing etc. through a comprehensive but user-friendly dashboard.

How Can You Secure Your Database Server?
A database server is a physical entity or virtual machine running the database. Securing a database server is a process that includes physical security, network security, and securing OS configuration.

  

Backup and Recovery:

Every DBMS should offer backup to help the recovery of a database after a failure. It is always okay to make backup copies of the database and log files at the regular period and ensure that the copies are in a secure location. In a failure that causes the database unusable, the backup copy and the details captured in the log file are used to restore the database.

So, this is what Database Security is and it applications in real world. Using the steps and methods mentioned in the blog, we can make our databases secure and reduce the risk of threats and data loss.

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