DATABASE SECURITY Proposed by

Abdulrahman Aldekhelallah

University of Scranton – CS521 Spring2015

Why is database security important?

Properties of Database Security

Categories of Attacker

Different Types of Attacks

Web Security Threats

Database Security Considerations

Recent Used Database Security Techniques

Outline

Databases often store data which is sensitive in nature

Incorrect data or loss of data could negatively affect business operations

Databases can be used as bases to attack other systems from

Why is Database Security Important ?

Confidentiality

Integrity

Availability

The Properties of Database Security

What does confidentiality mean ?

Privacy or the ability to control or restrict access so that only authorized individuals can view sensitive information.

One principles of confidentiality is “ Need-to-Know” or “Least Privilege”.

The most common method: Encryption Authentication Access Control

Confidentiality

Information is accurate and reliable and has not been subtly changed or tampered with by an unauthorized party.

Authenticity : The ability to verify content has not changed in an unauthorized manner

Non-repudiation & Accountability: The origin of any action on the system can be verified and associated with a user.

Integrity :( Data Integrity)

Availability is the proportion of time a system is in a functioning condition.

As the reliability increased, so does the availability.

Availability

Intruder : An unauthorized user means accessing a computer

system in an illegal manner and attempts to take out valuable information.

Insider : Trusted users who make violence of his/her privileges

and tries to get information beyond his own access permissions.

Administrator: An authorized user who uses the administration

privileges in unauthorized way according to organization’s security policy to get valuable information.

Categories of Attacker

Direct attacks Attacking the targeted data directly These types of attacks are successful only if the

database does not contain any protection mechanism.

Indirect attacks These attacks are not directly executed on the

target but information from or about the target can be received through other intermediate objects.

Difficult to find out or track Combinations of different queries

Different Types of Attacks

Passive Attack Attacker only observes data present in the database.

Static leakageLinkage leakageDynamic leakage

Active Attack Actual database values are modified. These are more problematic than passive attacks

because they can mislead a user. There are different ways of performing such kind of

attack: Spoofing - Splicing - Replay

Attacks on Database classified into two

types

AJAX Security: In recent years, adding AJAX elements in sites

has become a very popular style JavaScript :

is a widely client-side scripting language, it has been broadly used to reduce the load on the server

Run-time error can only be found during running time of program

Web Security Threats

Cross site scripting (also known as XSS or CSS):

By utilizing the XSS bugs in the web programs, malicious attackers construct a trap page and the malicious script can be saved in the page content or URL

If the visitors visit URL, the JavaScript will be executed by attackers’ browser.

Every organization must having its own security policy and that security policy should be strictly enforced.

A strong security policy must contain well defined security features.

Database Security Considerations

Ensures all communications with the databases and other system objects are according to the policies and controls defined.

No obstruction occurs by any attacker neither

internally nor externally

Protects the databases from potential errors.

Minimizing the risks that may directly impact the security of the database.

Access Control

Inference policy is required to protect the data at a particular level.

Some data are required to be protected at a certain higher security level.

The policy also determines how to protect the information from being released.

Inference Policy

The identification method describes a set of people that are allowed to access data and provides a complete mechanism of accessibility

To ensure security, the identity is authenticated and it keeps the sensitive data secure and from being modified by any ordinary user.

User Identification/ Authentication

These two checks are required to ensure physical integrity of the data which requires defined access to the databases and that is managed through auditing and record keeping.

Helps in analysis of information held on servers for authentication, accounting and access of a user.

Accountability and Auditing

Encryption is the process of transforming information by means of a cipher or a code so that it becomes unreadable to all other people except those who hold a key to the information.

Various Types of encryption offered by SQL : Column Level Database Level Instance Level

This encrypts ALL traffic to and from SQL server

Encryption

Securing Database using Cryptography

Securing Database using Steganography Securing Database using Access Control

Recent Used Database Security

Techniques

A database encryption scheme users are divided into two levels:

Level 1: users have access to their own private encrypted data and the unclassified public data.

Level 2: users have access to their own private data and also classified data which is stored in an encrypted form.

A novel database encryption mechanism Classify the data into sensitive data and public data. Encrypt only the sensitive and critical data Helps the performance is not degraded.

Mixed Cryptography Database scheme designing a framework to encrypt the databases. the data is grouped depending upon the ownership

and on other conditions.

Securing Database using Cryptography

Various techniques in steganography that can be implemented to hide critical data and prevent them from unauthorized and direct access.

the data is embedded in the least-significant-bit’s of the pixel values.

The pixels values are categorized into different ranges and

depending on the range certain number of bits is allocated to hide the sensitive data.

Securing Database using Steganography

the access to the database only after verifying

the credentials of that user

The credentials may not just be the user-id but

it may be the characteristics

There two techniques: A generalized authorization model

An authorization model

Securing Database using Access Control

A generalized authorization model involves integrating the three most common and widely

used access control mechanisms namely: Mandatory – Discretionary – and role-based model into a single framework to allow unified access to the protected data

An authorization model queries are acceptable only when the queries can be

verified using the information contained in the authorization rules.

Securing Database using Access ControlTechniques:

Questions or Comments?