Steps to be followed by the DBA for Database Security!
No matter whether you are a database administrator or information security professionals or both, it is you who has the duty to protect the company’s databases. Everyone will point out towards you for every single issue regarding database security.
Following are some steps that you can use to fulfill your duty and complete the security goals. Adopt them as your professional habits!
- Have knowledge regarding where the sensitive data is kept: This is necessary to setup controls and maintain the data security. It has been seen that mostly DBAs come to know about the exact position of the sensitive data from a third party. This increases the risk of data breaches. If you have placed controls and are aware of the actual position of the data, it would be easy for you to deal with the data breaches.
- Audit frequently: Auditing the way a database is being accessed can help you a lot! Audit tells you who have accessed the database and when. It also keeps a record of the changes made in the database including the detail of the user and time. For better security results, make sure you go for audit at least once a month.
- Keep an eye on the database activities and system charges: For greater safety, do not rely entirely on audits. Rather, go for continuous monitoring. This would help you in detecting unauthorized database access and making security changes in less than 24 hours.
- Avoid database bypass by encryption: If your database does not have encryption, even the most advanced controls and monitoring won’t work efficiently. Encryption is a fundamental element in data security. Without any encryption over the data, it would be very easy for any intruder to bypass the database platform completely on its own instead of searching for ways to open those database files. So, keep in mind to get your data encrypted.
- Keeping complete access to a database with limited users: It is a nice way of maintaining data security. It has been recognized that if the users are provided with data privileges more than what they require, there is a chance that one misuses his privileges and affect the data security.
- Look for measures to prevent application bypass: For an active database security, it is required to ensure yourself that there’s no end-around to get access to information kept in a database beyond the application used to connect to it.
By following the above steps, you can quickly accomplish your data security goal.