Databases act as the backbone of business operations and have a very stronghold in enterprise decision-making. DBMS operations cover the business transactions, customer headline, employee management, financial data, etc. for both the company and the customers. All these are held in the databases and often left to the database administrators’ discretion and power.
Sometimes, in SMEs, it is also possible that the database admins do not have proper security training or not having enough experience in facing different security challenges in enterprise database administration. This may end up in seriously adverse consequences if security is being taken lightly. We need to understand that database integrity and security are essential aspects of an organization’s security posture.
Your database servers are often kept secure in fire-proof and ax-proof locked cabins; however, the databases these hold demand more security measures. It is a daunting truth that enterprises tend to spend a lot of money and time to secure their online assets but tend to leave their dataset as a weak spot. So, there is no surprise that the business databases are the highly sought-after goldmines for the hackers, which they can easily intrude into.
Need for database integrity and security
We know that enterprise databases tend to be so complex, and the DBA’s do not always fully know the implications of database integrity and security. This is the reason why databases turn out to be the goldmines for hackers. For any organization of any size, it is essential to implement foolproof database security and integrity measures. Let us further looks into the facts as to what database security entails, the major security threats, and how organizations help maintain database integrity and security.
About database security
Database security comes under the broader umbrella of information security, which protects data confidentiality, availability, and integrity in enterprise databases. Confidentiality is the most important aspect of database security. It is also the most enforced aspect through multi-point encryption. Encryption must be done both over the data-at-rest and also the data-in-transit. Integrity is another crucial aspect of database security as it ensures that only correct users will be able to get access to privileged information. A database’s integrity is enforced through User Access Control, which defines permissions to access data based on privileges.
However, the integrity aspect also extends beyond simply permissions. The security implementations as password policies, authentication protocols, and ensuring deletion or locking of unused accounts, etc. help strengthen the database integrity. The availability of databases also relates to the need for databases to be always up and available for use. An enterprise database needs to be fully dependable to be fully functional, which demands it to be up and running all the time. If needed to be planned so, any downtimes should be on the weekends or during slog hours, and the database servers need to be always kept up to date. For server administration support, you can avail of services of RemoteDBA.com for remote administration.
Security threats
Risks involved in data security in databases vary from organization to organization, which largely depends on the type of information it holds and the importance of data it holds for the organization. Simultaneously, the credit card or social security numbers are so sensitive, and the company finances, business plans, and employee info to be guarded well.
So, in short, most of the databases are active in the company directories may be crucial in terms of company activities. It is also crucial to maintain solid data security practices and defenses to combat any possible attacks on the databases. You need to first look at what attacks your databases are subjected to if not secured properly. Then you will have to investigate the related facts to make sure that it does not happen to your organization’s data.
SQL injections are one of the top known threats to enterprise databases, mostly to web apps. These attacks can be launched directly on to the databases or to the web app, which acts as the interface to interact with databases. The prevalence of SQL injection is mostly on web apps lately, and they are so easy to exploit and very common than attacking databases.
SQL injection or SQLi usually occurs while the input data is un-sanitized before getting executed in the DB or to the web app which hosts the database. The attackers try to craft malicious inputs, allowing them to access the most sensitive data and giving them some escalated privileges. These dangerous exploits gain access to the operating system commands over the DB and the database itself.
Vulnerabilities related to buffer overflow are another common security threat for databases, which occur when any program attempts to copy too much data into its memory buffer by causing can overflow on the bugger and overwrite the data there in the memory. Vulnerabilities related to buffer overflow tend to pose a dangerous threat in holding highly sensitive info, which could let the attackers exploit the vulnerability by setting unknown values to the known ones or messing the entire programming logic using malicious codes.
Another most common type of attack is Denial of Service or DoS. These happen mostly through the buffer overflows itself, as we discussed above. It also causes data corruption or different types of consumption of server resources. DoS attacks aim to crash the server by making the DB unreachable to the users.
Privilege escalation is also a very dangerous threat, which can lead to some malicious deletion or addition of data, which may create havoc on the organization based on the sensitivity of the attack. The deletion of data modification can be either temporary or permanent based on the nature of the attack and the intention of the attackers.
In light of all these threats as mentioned above, you need to ensure that your database administrators understand and fully incorporate the business values and the importance of assuring database security and extend them to the database resources to administer it properly.