Database Security:

An Introduction
 Outline
 Introduction to Database Security Issues
• Types of Security
• Threats to databases
• Database Security and DBA
• Access Protection, User Accounts, and Database Audits
 Discretionary Access Control
• Types of Discretionary Privileges
• Specifying Privileges Using Views
• Revoking Privileges
• Propagation of Privileges Using the GRANT OPTION
• An example
• Weakness
 Mandatory Access Control
• Bell-LaPudula Model
• Comparing DAC and MAC
 RBAC (Role-Based Access Control)
 Encryption & PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)
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 Introduction to Database Security Issues

 Types of Security
• Legal and ethical issues
• Policy issues
• System-related issues
• The need to identify multiple security levels

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 Three Basic Concepts
 Authentication: a mechanism that determines
whether a user is who he or she claims to be
 Authorization: the granting of a right or privilege,
which enables a subject to legitimately have access
to a system or a system’s objects
 Access Control: a security mechanism (of a DBMS)
for restricting access to a system’s objects (the
database) as a whole

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4
 Introduction to Database Security Issue(2)

 Threats
• Any situation or event, whether intentional or
unintentional, that will adversely affect a system and
consequently an organization
• Threats to:
→Computer systems
→Databases

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Threats to Computer Systems

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 Scope of Data Security Needs

•Must protect databases & the servers on which they reside

•Must administer & protect the rights of internal database users
•Must guarantee the confidentiality of ecommerce customers
as they access the database
•With the Internet continually growing, the threat to data
traveling over the network increases exponentially

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Introduction to Database Security Issues (3)

 Threats to databases
• Loss of integrity
• Loss of availability
• Loss of confidentiality

 To protect databases against these types of threats four

kinds of countermeasures can be implemented:
• Access control
• Inference control
• Flow control
• Encryption

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Introduction to Database Security Issues (4)

 A DBMS typically includes a database security and

authorization subsystem that is responsible for
ensuring the security portions of a database against
unauthorized access.

 Two types of database security mechanisms:

• Discretionary security mechanisms
• Mandatory security mechanisms

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Introduction to Database Security Issues 5)

 The security mechanism of a DBMS must include

provisions for restricting access to the database as
a whole
• This function is called access control and is handled by
creating user accounts and passwords to control login
process by the DBMS.

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Introduction to Database Security Issues (6)

 The security problem associated with databases is

that of controlling the access to a statistical
database, which is used to provide statistical
information or summaries of values based on
various criteria.

• The countermeasures to statistical database security

problem is called inference control measures.

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Introduction to Database Security Issues (7)

 Another security is that of flow control, which

prevents information from flowing in such a way that
it reaches unauthorized users.

 Channels that are pathways for information to flow

implicitly in ways that violate the security policy of
an organization are called covert channels.

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Introduction to Database Security Issues (8)

 A final security issue is data encryption, which is

used to protect sensitive data (such as credit card
numbers) that is being transmitted via some type
communication network.
 The data is encoded using some encoding
algorithm.
• An unauthorized user who access encoded data will have
difficulty deciphering it, but authorized users are given
decoding or decrypting algorithms (or keys) to decipher
data.

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 Database Security and the DBA

 The database administrator (DBA) is the central

authority for managing a database system.
• The DBA’s responsibilities include
→granting privileges to users who need to use the system
→classifying users and data in accordance with the policy of the
organization
 The DBA is responsible for the overall security of
the database system.

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 Database Security and the DBA (2)
 The DBA has a DBA account in the DBMS
• Sometimes these are called a system or superuser account
• These accounts provide powerful capabilities such as:
→1. Account creation
→2. Privilege granting
→3. Privilege revocation
→4. Security level assignment
• Action 1 is access control, whereas 2 and 3 are discretionarym
and 4 is used to control mandatory authorization

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 Access Protection, User Accounts, and
Database Audits
 Whenever a person or group of person s need to
access a database system, the individual or group
must first apply for a user account.
• The DBA will then create a new account id and
password for the user if he/she deems there is a
legitimate need to access the database
 The user must log in to the DBMS by entering
account id and password whenever database
access is needed.

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 Access Protection, User Accounts, and
Database Audits(2)
 The database system must also keep track of all
operations on the database that are applied by a
certain user throughout each login session.
• To keep a record of all updates applied to the database
and of the particular user who applied each update, we
can modify system log, which includes an entry for each
operation applied to the database that may be required
for recovery from a transaction failure or system crash.

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 Access Protection, User Accounts, and
Database Audits(3)
 If any tampering with the database is suspected, a
database audit is performed
• A database audit consists of reviewing the log to examine
all accesses and operations applied to the database
during a certain time period.
 A database log that is used mainly for security
purposes is sometimes called an audit trail.

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 Outline
 Introduction to Database Security Issues
• Types of Security
• Threats to databases
• Database Security and DBA
• Access Protection, User Accounts, and Database Audits
 Discretionary Access Control
• Types of Discretionary Privileges
• Specifying Privileges Using Views
• Revoking Privileges
• Propagation of Privileges Using the GRANT OPTION
• An example
• Weakness
 Mandatory Access Control
• Bell-LaPudula Model
• Comparing DAC and MAC
 RBAC (Role-Based Access Control)
 Encryption & PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)
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 Discretionary Access Control

 The typical method of enforcing discretionary

access control in a database system is based on
the granting and revoking privileges.

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 Types of Discretionary Privileges

 The account level:

• At this level, the DBA specifies the particular privileges
that each account holds independently of the relations in
the database.
 The relation level (or table level):
• At this level, the DBA can control the privilege to access
each individual relation or view in the database.

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 Types of Discretionary Privileges(2)
 The privileges at the account level apply to the capabilities
provided to the account itself and can include
• the CREATE SCHEMA or CREATE TABLE privilege, to create
a schema or base relation;
• the CREATE VIEW privilege;
• the ALTER privilege, to apply schema changes such adding or
removing attributes from relations;
• the DROP privilege, to delete relations or views;
• the MODIFY privilege, to insert, delete, or update tuples;
• and the SELECT privilege, to retrieve information from the
database by using a SELECT query.

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 Types of Discretionary Privileges(3)
 The second level of privileges applies to the relation level
• This includes base relations and virtual (view) relations.
 The granting and revoking of privileges generally follow an
authorization model for discretionary privileges known as the
access matrix model where
• The rows of a matrix M represents subjects (users, accounts,
programs)
• The columns represent objects (relations, records, columns,
views, operations).
• Each position M(i,j) in the matrix represents the types of
privileges (read, write, update) that subject i holds on object j.

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 Types of Discretionary Privileges(4)
 To control the granting and revoking of relation privileges,
each relation R in a database is assigned and owner
account, which is typically the account that was used when
the relation was created in the first place.
• The owner of a relation is given all privileges on that relation.
• In SQL2, the DBA can assign and owner to a whole schema by
creating the schema and associating the appropriate
authorization identifier with that schema, using the CREATE
SCHEMA command.
• The owner account holder can pass privileges on any of the
owned relation to other users by granting privileges to their
accounts.

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 Types of Discretionary Privileges(5)
 In SQL the following types of privileges can be granted on
each individual relation R:
• SELECT (retrieval or read) privilege on R:
→Gives the account retrieval privilege.
→In SQL this gives the account the privilege to use the SELECT
statement to retrieve tuples from R.
• MODIFY privileges on R:
→This gives the account the capability to modify tuples of R.
→In SQL this privilege is further divided into UPDATE, DELETE,
and INSERT privileges to apply the corresponding SQL command
to R.
→In addition, both the INSERT and UPDATE privileges can specify
that only certain attributes can be updated by the account.

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 Types of Discretionary Privileges(6)
 In SQL the following types of privileges can be
granted on each individual relation R (contd.):
• REFERENCES privilege on R:
→This gives the account the capability to reference relation R when
specifying integrity constraints.
→The privilege can also be restricted to specific attributes of R.

 Notice that to create a view, the account must have

SELECT privilege on all relations involved in the
view definition.

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 Specifying Privileges Using Views
 The mechanism of views is an important discretionary
authorization mechanism in its own right. For example,
• If the owner A of a relation R wants another account B to be
able to retrieve only some fields of R, then A can create a view
V of R that includes only those attributes and then grant
SELECT on V to B.
• The same applies to limiting B to retrieving only certain tuples
of R; a view V’ can be created by defining the view by means
of a query that selects only those tuples from R that A wants to
allow B to access.

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 Revoking Privileges

 In some cases it is desirable to grant a privilege to a

user temporarily. For example,
• The owner of a relation may want to grant the SELECT
privilege to a user for a specific task and then revoke that
privilege once the task is completed.
• Hence, a mechanism for revoking privileges is needed.
In SQL, a REVOKE command is included for the purpose
of canceling privileges.

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Propagation of Privileges using the GRANT
OPTION
 Whenever the owner A of a relation R grants a privilege on R
to another account B, privilege can be given to B with or
without the GRANT OPTION.
 If the GRANT OPTION is given, this means that B can also
grant that privilege on R to other accounts.
• Suppose that B is given the GRANT OPTION by A and that B
then grants the privilege on R to a third account C, also with
GRANT OPTION. In this way, privileges on R can propagate
to other accounts without the knowledge of the owner of R.
• If the owner account A now revokes the privilege granted to B,
all the privileges that B propagated based on that privilege
should automatically be revoked by the system.

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 An Example
 Suppose that the DBA creates four accounts
• A1, A2, A3, A4
 and wants only A1 to be able to create base relations. Then
the DBA must issue the following GRANT command in SQL
GRANT CREATETAB TO A1;
 In SQL2 the same effect can be accomplished by having the
DBA issue a CREATE SCHEMA command as follows:
CREATE SCHAMA EXAMPLE AUTHORIZATION A1;

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 An Example(2)
 User account A1 can create tables under the schema called
EXAMPLE.
 Suppose that A1 creates the two base relations EMPLOYEE
and DEPARTMENT
• A1 is then owner of these two relations and hence all the
relation privileges on each of them.
 Suppose that A1 wants to grant A2 the privilege to insert and
delete tuples in both of these relations, but A1 does not want
A2 to be able to propagate these privileges to additional
accounts:
GRANT INSERT, DELETE ON
EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT TO A2;

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An Example(3)

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 An Example(4)
 Suppose that A1 wants to allow A3 to retrieve information
from either of the two tables and also to be able to propagate
the SELECT privilege to other accounts.
 A1 can issue the command:
GRANT SELECT ON EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT
TO A3 WITH GRANT OPTION;
 A3 can grant the SELECT privilege on the EMPLOYEE
relation to A4 by issuing:
GRANT SELECT ON EMPLOYEE TO A4;
• Notice that A4 can’t propagate the SELECT privilege because
GRANT OPTION was not given to A4

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 An Example(5)

 Suppose that A1 decides to revoke the SELECT

privilege on the EMPLOYEE relation from A3; A1
can issue:
REVOKE SELECT ON EMPLOYEE FROM A3;
 The DBMS must now automatically revoke the
SELECT privilege on EMPLOYEE from A4, too,
because A3 granted that privilege to A4 and A3
does not have the privilege any more.

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 An Example(6)
 Suppose that A1 wants to give back to A3 a limited capability to SELECT
from the EMPLOYEE relation and wants to allow A3 to be able to
propagate the privilege.
• The limitation is to retrieve only the NAME, BDATE, and ADDRESS
attributes and only for the tuples with DNO=5.
 A1 then create the view:
CREATE VIEW A3EMPLOYEE AS
SELECT NAME, BDATE, ADDRESS
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE DNO = 5;
 After the view is created, A1 can grant SELECT on the view
A3EMPLOYEE to A3 as follows:
GRANT SELECT ON A3EMPLOYEE TO A3
WITH GRANT OPTION;

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 An Example(7)
 Finally, suppose that A1 wants to allow A4 to update only the
SALARY attribute of EMPLOYEE;
 A1 can issue:
GRANT UPDATE ON EMPLOYEE (SALARY) TO A4;

• The UPDATE or INSERT privilege can specify particular

attributes that may be updated or inserted in a relation.
• Other privileges (SELECT, DELETE) are not attribute specific.

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 DAC: Weakness

 Example of a Trojan Horse

User X Program P
select * from f1;
commit;
…

Read f1
Write f2

Table f1 Table f2

Not for user Y Not for user Y

Owner X Owner Y
(X, write, f2)

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 Outline
 Introduction to Database Security Issues
• Types of Security
• Threats to databases
• Database Security and DBA
• Access Protection, User Accounts, and Database Audits
 Discretionary Access Control
• Types of Discretionary Privileges
• Specifying Privileges Using Views
• Revoking Privileges
• Propagation of Privileges Using the GRANT OPTION
• An example
• Weakness
 Mandatory Access Control
• Bell-LaPudula Model
• Comparing DAC and MAC
 RBAC (Role-Based Access Control)
 Encryption & PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)
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 Mandatory Access Control

 Granting access to the data on the basis of users’

clearance level and the sensitivity level of the data
 Bell-LaPadula’s two principles: no read-up & no
write-down secrecy

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 Bell-LaPudula Model

• Typical security classes are top secret (TS), secret

(S), confidential (C), and unclassified (U), where TS
is the highest level and U is the lowest one: TS ≥ S
≥C≥U
• Two restrictions are enforced on data access based
on the subject/object classifications:
• A subject S is not allowed read access to an object O
unless class(S) ≥ class(O). This is known as the simple
security property
• A subject S is not allowed to write an object O unless
class(S) ≤ class(O). This known as the star property (or *
property)
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 Mandatory Access Control(2)
 To incorporate multilevel security notions into the relational database
model, it is common to consider attribute values and tuples as data
objects.
 Hence, each attribute A is associated with a classification attribute C in
the schema, and each attribute value in a tuple is associated with a
corresponding security classification.
 In addition, in some models, a tuple classification attribute TC is added
to the relation attributes to provide a classification for each tuple as a
whole.
 Hence, a multilevel relation schema R with n attributes would be
represented as
• R(A1,C1,A2,C2, …, An,Cn,TC)
 where each Ci represents the classification attribute associated with
attribute Ai.

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 Mandatory Access Control(3)

 The value of the TC attribute in each tuple t – which

is the highest of all attribute classification values
within t – provides a general classification for the
tuple itself, whereas each Ci provides a finer
security classification for each attribute value within
the tuple.
• The apparent key of a multilevel relation is the set of
attributes that would have formed the primary key in a
regular(single-level) relation.

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Mandatory Access Control(4)

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 Comparing DAC and MAC

 Discretionary Access Control (DAC) policies are

characterized by a high degree of flexibility, which
makes them suitable for a large variety of
application domains.
• The main drawback of DAC models is their vulnerability to
malicious attacks, such as Trojan horses embedded in
application programs.

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 Comparing DAC and MAC (2)

 By contrast, mandatory policies ensure a high

degree of protection in a way, they prevent any
illegal flow of information.
 Mandatory policies have the drawback of being too
rigid and they are only applicable in limited
environments.
 In many practical situations, discretionary policies
are preferred because they offer a better trade-off
between security and applicability.

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 Outline
 Introduction to Database Security Issues
• Types of Security
• Threats to databases
• Database Security and DBA
• Access Protection, User Accounts, and Database Audits
 Discretionary Access Control
• Types of Discretionary Privileges
• Specifying Privileges Using Views
• Revoking Privileges
• Propagation of Privileges Using the GRANT OPTION
• An example
• Weakness
 Mandatory Access Control
• Bell-LaPudula Model
• Comparing DAC and MAC
 RBAC (Role-Based Access Control)
 Encryption & PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)
46
 Role-Based Access Control
 Role-based access control (RBAC) emerged rapidly in the
1990s as a proven technology for managing and enforcing
security in large-scale enterprisewide systems.
 Its basic notion is that permissions are associated with roles,
and users are assigned to appropriate roles.
 Roles can be created using the CREATE ROLE and
DESTROY ROLE commands.
• The GRANT and REVOKE commands discussed under DAC
can then be used to assign and revoke privileges from roles.

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 Outline
 Introduction to Database Security Issues
• Types of Security
• Threats to databases
• Database Security and DBA
• Access Protection, User Accounts, and Database Audits
 Discretionary Access Control
• Types of Discretionary Privileges
• Specifying Privileges Using Views
• Revoking Privileges
• Propagation of Privileges Using the GRANT OPTION
• An example
• Weakness
 Mandatory Access Control
• Bell-LaPudula Model
• Comparing DAC and MAC
 RBAC (Role-Based Access Control)
 Encryption & PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)
48
 Encryption

 The encoding of the data by a special algorithm that

renders the data unreadable by any program
without the decryption key
 Symmetric cryptography: sender and receiver use
the same key
 Asymmetric cryptography: encryption & decryption
keys

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 Encryption
 Encryption key: public key
 Decryption key: private key
 Asymmetric techniques: more secure but expensive in terms of
computational costs

Use public key of receiver

to encrypt the message
Sender encryption key Receiver

Encrypted message
using a symmetric key

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Encryption & PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)

 How does PKI work? TRUSTED

Certificate Authority
(CA)

Use R’s public key to

encrypt the message
encryption key 4-recv data
Sender S Receiver R
3-send data and
Encrypted message
using a symmetric key decrypt it

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 Summary
 Introduction to Database Security Issues
• Types of Security
• Threats to databases
• Database Security and DBA
• Access Protection, User Accounts, and Database Audits
 Discretionary Access Control
• Types of Discretionary Privileges
• Specifying Privileges Using Views
• Revoking Privileges
• Propagation of Privileges Using the GRANT OPTION
• An example
• Weakness
 Mandatory Access Control
• Bell-LaPudula Model
• Comparing DAC and MAC
 RBAC (Role-Based Access Control)
 Encryption & PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)
52
Q&A

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