No enterprise, corporation, government agency can do without the use of information base (customers, regulations, products, financial statements). Such arrays almost always contain personal, corporate and confidential information. Its abduction can have catastrophic consequences, both financial and reputational.
There are two main reasons for private companies and public institutions to spend more and more money on database protection.
First, it is cybercrime. Continuous improvement of the tool of attackers, emergence of new programs-extortionists, fileless ways of penetration and risk that one of employees will carry out the actions which pose a threat to the confidential information. In 2019 alone, according to data Breach QuickView Report research, more than 9 billion accounts containing personal information were disclosed. With the development of criminal technology, solutions are being developed to help protect classified information. It is important to take preventative measures, such as configuring the firewall, to restrict access to suspicious and incoming traffic, and to implement solutions and procedures in the event of an unwanted security breach.
Secondly, it is a problem of conformity. International legislation on the protection of personal information is constantly being improved and tightened. The responsibility for the inviolability of confidential information rests with the organizations that collect it in the course of their activities. Moreover, depending on the industry and type of information assets, regulatory requirements may differ significantly. To be competitive in the market, Ukrainian companies need to meet these standards, invest more financial resources in ensuring the protection of databases.
Ensuring security
What is data security? This is an important part of the overall protection strategy. It includes methods for identifying and assessing security threats and reducing the risks associated with the protection of confidential information and underlying computer systems and network infrastructure.
In this context, it is important to understand that data protection and database security are not the same thing.
The process of data protection of the information base involves active actions to ensure security. Database systems protection is a set of methods, software, processes, programs and technologies, the use of which ensures the security of stored information and prevents it from unauthorized electronic access, modifications, accidental disclosure, violation, destruction, copying.
Database security is associated with passive measures, which mainly relate to privacy policy. They determine how corporations process and manage the assets at their disposal, especially confidential ones such as personal information, credit card data, medical or educational records.
A well-known rule is that database protection must be multilevel. This means that a set of measures is needed to prevent unauthorized access to or copying of the database. The more levels of protection, the more effort and software an attacker will need to hack. And a multi-level security system should begin with user-level control. Database protection at the initial stage is the ability to distribute processes, privileges and access rights. The threat of information can be not only external but also internal. Employees of the enterprise have more opportunities to gain unauthorized access and copy data. And this can be done both intentionally and accidentally.
Therefore, protection at the initial level provides for the effective restriction of unauthorized access. Controls verify the authenticity of distributed user and application rights by restricting their access to the database: providing appropriate attributes and user roles, and restricting administrative privileges.
Basic security concepts
The fundamental basis is the so-called triad – confidentiality, integrity, accessibility. In English it sounds like confidentiality, integrity and availability or CIA.
- Confidentiality. Provides for the principle of least privileges. Prevent unauthorized access to confidential information.
- Integrity. Protection against incorrect deletion or modification. One way to ensure integrity is to use a digital signature to authenticate and secure transactions, which is widely used by government agencies and organizations working in the medical field.
- Accessibility. The main element. Controls, computer systems and software must work properly to ensure the availability of services and information systems when needed. For example, if a financial database is disabled, the accounting department will not be able to send or pay bills on time, which can lead to disruption of critical business processes.
Methods, types and ways of information protection in databases
The development and security of enterprise-class storage systems is a complex task that requires a balance between performance, availability and cost. Our company has extensive experience in this field and is the exclusive distributor of software from various manufacturers in this field.
Physical protection. It is very important to pay attention to the equipment on which access to personal information is possible, the program on their service and processing is started. The set of necessary measures includes blocking the rooms where the terminals and servers are located, regardless of whether they are local or accessible through the cloud service. It also means that security services control the physical access to this equipment and make sure that no unnecessary copies are made. It is also important not to host web services and applications on the same server as the information that the organization wants to provide.
Cryptography. Database encryption or cryptographic protection is one of the most effective methods of database security. The encryption algorithm converts information into obscure characters using a mathematical process. While other security tools protect the system from intrusions or attacks, encryption is a fundamental form of data security. This means that even if the system is hacked, the information will only be readable by authorized users who have encryption keys.
The process of protecting database data is impossible without password management, which is crucial for maintaining security. This side of the security strategy is usually monitored by IT staff. Database security practices also include privilege management. Organizations can take many different steps to manage passwords, such as using up-to-date two- or multi-factor authentication methods, and giving users limited time to enter credentials.
The importance of encryption
No matter how reliable the data protection systems are, it is impossible to guarantee the possibility of their hacking, leakage or interception of information. And here, when the attacker is already happy in anticipation of how he will dispose of it and how much he will earn, he realizes that the data is encrypted. In other words, encryption is the last line of database protection, ensuring that even if a fortress falls, the enemy will get gigabytes of meaningless characters that cannot be interpreted.
Як спеціалізована компанія у сфері забезпечення кібербезпеки, iIT Distribution може надати клієнту всі відомі технології шифрування, необхідні для захисту інформації.
Isolation of particularly confidential information
A very effective measure, due to which the average user will not be able to learn about the very existence of such a confidential database. This method will be especially effective against zero-day attacks. Even the presence and use of vulnerabilities will not give the hacker an idea of the entire structure of the database due to the isolation of particularly valuable information.
Change management
This measure involves managing changes to the database. Examples of possible changes include mergers, edits that can be performed by users who access IT resources. It is necessary to document what changes have occurred and whether they will not damage secure access to the database and applications. It is also important to identify all applications and IT systems that will take these changes into account in their information flows.
Security of cellular networks
Security of cellular networks differs in that there are two databases or, as they are called, registers. One of them – HLR (home location register) – contains information about the subscriber, his phone number, equipment ID, list of services and location at the current time. The other, the VLR (Visitors Location Register), contains information about the number of active subscribers in range and allows you to identify them by the mobile device’s IMEI number or IMEI. It is for the protection of registers that software methods and encryption algorithms are used.
