User:GamalSayed

Database ProtectionBold text By Gamal S. Ibrahim During the last decade, the technology life cycle has become very short, as the pace of technological innovation has increased. This increasing technological innovation leads to pressure on the organisations to get their products to market more quickly. Competition among companies has also increased due to the pace of technological innovation. Customers’ expectations have also increased, an expected result of the fast technological changes; competition to meet the customer’s needs has similarly increased. Nowadays, organisations are trying to contact their customers and present their products and services over the Internet as e-commerce applications, WAP, GSM, and in others ways, as well as sharing information and resources with them [1]. Databases represent the foundations of an effective Electronic Business, Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP), and Customer Relationship Management (CRM); they often include most of the organisations’ partners’ and customers’ sensitive information [2]. It is a fact that most businesses today can’t continue with their daily work if their databases are down. In business today, correct data comes to symbolise an organisation’s most valuable asset, like credit card information, medical records, payroll, and manufacturing and trade secrets, which turns information into money [3]. Since Database Management Systems (DBMS) represent the house of data assets, Database have become a target for attack and also an object of protection. If the database is compromised, it is likely to have serious repercussions on business feasibility [3]. Thorough protection of the database will reduce the chances of the corporation’s most valuable assets being attack or exposed [4]. Although databases are vital for conducting daily business [2] and the necessity of keeping them secure and unimpaired is very important, they do not command the same level of security concern as the operating system and network [3]. Database protection takes second place to operating systems and networks. There is a common misapprehension that if the operating systems and network are secured, the database security is included. But if the database is compromised, it is a fact that networks and operating systems can also be affected. [3]. Attention to the importance of securing the database is increasing, since discussions about securing the database have significantly increased over the last few years. [3]. Understanding Vulnerabilities / Threats Understanding vulnerabilities and threats is essential to strengthening controls. This project seeks to identify the potential vulnerabilities and the tighter security controls, which need to be implemented for the project. Databases are exposed to many threats that can have a deleterious affect upon the database availability, integrity, and privacy; for example, power outages, natural disasters, physical location, stopping the database (Denial of Service), as well as other things [5, 6, and 7]. A database can be compromised by many factors, including insecure passwords, improper-configuration, and unknown backdoors [3]. Generally there are many issues which can have a negatively impact upon the database availability, integrity, and confidentiality; they can be categorised as:- Database Protection Natural disasters: such as earthquakes, tornados, or volcanoes [5, 6, and 7]. Physical location: locating the database site in a flood plain, near to dangerous or flammable material storage sites, on earthquake lines, or places where air or rail traffic can cause potential dangers [5, 6]. Electric power: Power failure can cause a break in the transaction processing; if not handled properly, these failures can affect data and transaction processing. Continuous and uninterrupted power is critical for stable and consistent databases [5, 6]. Fire, Water, High Temperatures, Dust, High Humidity Catastrophic Hardware Failure: realer event to occurs, if occurred destructive event takes place [5, 6]. Software Bugs: buffer overflows and programming errors [3]. Hacking: database is prone to attack by insiders / outsiders; attackers vary according to their incentive and techniques but they all share one motive, their desire to compromise the database. The motivation, which pushes some attackers, might be their curiosity as to how things work and during their explorations they may delete or update data. Some of these people could steal valuable information, such as credit card numbers or social security numbers. Further types of attackers may be previous or present employees who can be a source of enormous damage to the organisation’s assets, they are known as disgruntled workers or insiders. All these people are classified as hackers [2, 3]. A table next to page 17 shows the most significant threats affecting the database stability and performance. OBJECTIVES The purpose of this work is to identify the major threats to the database, and to suggest the proper controls to make database-working 24×7. This work focuses on how maximum protection to the database in large-scale organisations (such as banks) can be achieved, and formulate a proposed framework for database protection model. Database protection can be achieved by accomplishing the following quadruple objectives: - Availability Integrity Confidentiality Accountability Figure 2 Objectives Model Adapted from [6] Availability – means database continues working properly and services to the authorised persons are not stopped. Availability means the database can be reached provided with the necessary protection against [6]: Database Protection - Any attempts to disallow the deletion of data, either intentionally or unintentionally [6]. - Any unauthorised attempts to stop the database services. [6] - Using the system or data for illegal activities. [6] Integrity – means preventing data/DBMS from being updated by unauthorised persons or in any other way. Integrity is needed at two levels: [6] - Data integrity - DBMS integrity Confidentiality - means protecting confidential data from being disclosed to unauthorised persons [6]. Accountability – means maintaining audit trail for tracing specific actions done over the database entity. It is required to support non-repudiation, after graceful recovery from attack [6]. IDENTIFYING PROTECTION MEASURES In this thesis I am endeavouring to introduce some techniques to protect databases at both the level of the Database Management System (DBMS) and the actual data. The consideration of the database protection should start at the point when deciding the location of physical site, and the fundamental environmental systems. Deciding on Physical Site location: protecting the database and ensuring its availability, which is one of the work objectives, begins with deciding the physical site. The significant criteria when selecting the data centre are listed in this work. Environmental Systems: some crucial threats to database servers are: high temperatures, dust, high humidity, etc. Sets of environmental systems described here play a significant role in preventing related risks. Hardware Configuration: Hardware configuration one issue to be considered in protecting the database. What should be born in mind when configuring the database server? Backup/ Recovery Strategy: Backup Recovery Strategy (BRS) is an important aspect of fast recovery and continuity in case of disasters. Encryption: One of the modern developments in security has been the move from providing security in the data through securing the network to securing the data at source [3]. The motive for this revolutionary approach has been that boundary security no longer works properly in today's environment. It is crucial that not only employees need access to databases, but also partners and customers, which makes it difficult to keep the database hidden behind a firewall [3]. Encryption is adding a significant level of protection to the database. Based on the nature of the system, and data sensitivity, encryption is regularly allied to information moving from one side to another. On high-risk database environments, encryption must also be enabled at the lowest level, that is, at the level of the stored data [8]. Firewall, Intrusion Prevention/Protection, and Anti-virus: protecting the database / data exposure while routing over different devices in the network at the Database Protection network borders is needed; such protection is achieved by implementing systems firewall, intrusion prevention/protection, and ant-virus [5, 6, and 9]. User Awareness: Adequate security standards should be known to users and written in the employee handbook that is handout to employees in the Human Resources Dept. This handbook contains rules, such as password guidelines, acceptable use policy, and other important policies [9]. Auditing and Monitoring: the database should be audited by the administrator by following an audit trail or list of what has occurred to facilitate the detection of any potential attack, and the necessary action should be taken to prevent it. Auditing provides an opportunity to see if the security policies have been satisfied [6].