Topic Seven: Database Security and

Authorization

Learning Objectives
After studying this module students should be

able to:
 Database Security Issues
 know why database security is a serious
concern for an organization.
Identify The types of threat that can affect a
database system.
Database Security The mechanisms that protect the
database against intentional or accidental threats.
• The term security refers to the protection of the
database against unauthorized access, either
intentional or accidental. Besides the services
provided by the DBMS, discussions on database
security could also include broader issues associated
with securing the database and its environment.
• Security considerations apply not only to the data
held in a database: breaches of
• security may affect other parts of the system, which
may in turn affect the database.
 Consequently, database security encompasses
hardware, software, people, and data.
• To effectively implement security requires
appropriate controls, which are defined in specific
mission objectives for the system.
This need for security, while often having been
neglected or overlooked in the past, is now
increasingly recognized by organizations. The reason
for this turnaround is the increasing amounts of
crucial corporate data being stored on computer and
the acceptance that any loss or unavailability of this
data could prove to be disastrous.
• A database represents an essential corporate
resource that should be properly secured
• using appropriate controls. We consider database security in
relation to the following situations:
 theft and fraud;
 loss of confidentiality (secrecy);
 loss of privacy
 loss of integrity;
 loss of availability.
These situations broadly represent areas in which the
organization should seek to reduce risk, that is the possibility of
incurring loss or damage. In some situations, these areas are
closely related such that an activity that leads to loss in one
area may also lead to loss in another. In addition, events such as
fraud or loss of privacy may arise because of either intentional
or unintentional acts, and do not necessarily result in any
detectable changes to the database or the computer system.
• Theft and fraud affect not only the database environment
but also the entire organization.
As it is people who perpetrate such activities, attention
should focus on reducing the opportunities for this
occurring. Theft and fraud do not necessarily alter data, as is
the case for activities that result in either loss of
confidentiality or loss of privacy.
• Confidentiality refers to the need to maintain secrecy over
data, usually only that which is critical to the organization,
whereas privacy refers to the need to protect data about
individuals.
• Breaches of security resulting in loss of confidentiality
could, for instance, lead to loss of competitiveness, and
loss of privacy could lead to legal action being taken
against the organization.
• Loss of data integrity results in invalid or corrupted data,
which may seriously affect the operation of an
organization. Many organizations are now seeking virtually
continuous operation, the so-called 24/7 availability (that
is, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week).
• Loss of availability means that the data, or the system, or
both cannot be accessed, which can seriously affect an
organization’s financial performance. In some cases,
events that cause a system to be unavailable may also
cause data corruption.
• Database security aims to minimize losses caused by
anticipated events in a cost effective manner without
unduly constraining the users. In recent times, computer-
based criminal activities have significantly increased and
are forecast to continue to rise over the next few years.
Threats
• Threat Any situation or event, whether intentional or accidental,
that may adversely affect a system and consequently the
organization.
• A threat may be caused by a situation or event involving a person,
action, or circumstance that is likely to bring harm to an
organization.
• The harm may be tangible, such as loss of hardware, software,
or data, or intangible, such as loss of credibility or client
confidence.
• The problem facing any organization is to identify all possible
threats. Therefore, as a minimum an organization should invest
time and effort in identifying the most serious threats.
• In the previous section we identified areas of loss that may result
from intentional or unintentional activities.
• While some types of threat can be either intentional
or unintentional, the impact remains the same.
Intentional threats involve people and may be
perpetrated by both authorized users and
unauthorized users, some of whom may be external
to the organization.
• Any threat must be viewed as a potential breach of
security which, if successful, will have a certain
impact. Table 7.1 presents examples of various types
of threat, listed under the area on which they may
have an impact. For example, ‘viewing and disclosing
unauthorized data’ as a threat may result in theft
and fraud, loss of confidentiality, and loss of privacy
for the organization.
 Loss of Loss of Loss of Loss of Theft Threat
availability Privacy Confidentiality and
Integrity
Fraud

   Using another
person’s means of
access
  Unauthorized
amendment or
copying of data

   Program
alteration
   Inadequate
policies and
procedures that
allow a mix of
confidential and
normal output
   Wire tapping
 Loss of Loss of Loss of Loss of Theft and Threat
availability Privacy Confidentiality Fraud
Integrity

   Illegal entry by
hacker

   Blackmail

   Creating ‘trapdoor’
into system

    Theft of data,
programs, and
equipment

   Failure of security
mechanisms, giving
greater access than
normal
Table 7.1 Examples of threats.

Loss of Loss of Loss of Loss of Theft Threat

  Staff shortages or
strikes

    Inadequate staff
training

   Viewing and
disclosing
• The extent that an organization suffers as a result
of a threat’s succeeding depends upon a number
of factors, such as the existence of
countermeasures and contingency plans. For
example, if a hardware failure occurs corrupting
secondary storage, all processing activity must
cease until the problem is resolved. The recovery
will depend upon a number of factors, which
include when the last backups were taken and the
time needed to restore the system.
• An organization needs to identify the types of
threat it may be subjected to and initiate
appropriate plans and countermeasures, bearing in
mind the costs of implementing them.
• Obviously, it may not be cost-effective to spend
considerable time, effort, and money on potential
threats that may result only in minor inconvenience.
The organization’s business may also influence the
types of threat that should be considered, some of
which may be rare. However, rare events should be
taken into account, particularly if their impact would
be significant. Some of the potential threats to
computer system are as follows.
Hardware: Fire/Flood/bombs
• Data corruption due to power loss or surge failure of
security mechanisms giving greater access. Theft of
equipment physical damage to equipment Electronic
interference and radiation.
Communication Networks: Wire tapping. breaking or
disconnection of cables. Electronic interference and
radiation.
• DBMS and Application Software: Failure of security
mechanism, giving greater access. Program alteration or
theft of programs.
• Database: Unauthorized amendment or copying of data,
theft of data. Data corruption due to power loss or surge.
• Users: Using another person's means of access, viewing and
disclosing unauthorized data. Inadequate staff training,
illegal entry by hacker, blackmail, and introduction of
viruses.
• Programmers/Operators: Creating trapdoors. Program
alteration (such as software that is insecure), inadequate
staff training , inadequate security policies, procedures,
staff shortages or strikes.
Countermeasures – Computer-Based Controls
• The types of countermeasure to threats on computer systems
range from physical controls to administrative procedures. Despite
the range of computer-based controls that are available, it is worth
noting that, generally, the security of a DBMS is only as good as
that of the operating system, owing to their close association.
• In this section we focus on the following computer-based security
controls for a multi-user environment (some of which may not be
available in the PC environment):
Authorization
access controls
Views
backup and recovery
Integrity
Encryption
RAID technology.
Authorization
• The granting of a right or privilege that enables a
subject to have legitimate access to a system or a
system’s object.
• Authorization controls can be built into the software,
and govern not only what system or object a specified
user can access, but also what the user may do with it.
The process of authorization involves authentication of
subjects requesting access to objects, where ‘subject’
represents a user or program and ‘object’ represents a
database table, view, procedure, trigger, or any other
object that can be created within the system.
• Authentication A mechanism that determines whether a
user is who he or she claims to be.
• A system administrator is usually responsible for allowing
users to have access to a computer system by creating
individual user accounts. Each user is given a unique identifier,
which is used by the operating system to determine who they
are. Associated with each identifier is a password, chosen by
the user and known to the operating system, which must be
supplied to enable the operating system to verify (or
authenticate) who the user claims to be.
• This procedure allows authorized use of a computer system
but does not necessarily authorize access to the DBMS or any
associated application programs. A separate, similar
procedure may have to be undertaken to give a user the right
to use the DBMS. The responsibility to authorize use of the
DBMS usually rests with the Database Administrator (DBA),
who must also set up individual user accounts and passwords
using the DBMS itself.
• Some DBMSs maintain a list of valid user identifiers and
associated passwords, which can be distinct from the
operating system’s list. However, other DBMSs maintain
a list whose entries are validated against the operating
system’s list based on the current user’s login identifier.
This prevents a user from logging on to the DBMS with
one name, having already logged on to the operating
system using a different name.
Access Controls
• The typical way to provide access controls for a
database system is based on the granting and revoking
of privileges. A privilege allows a user to create or
access (that is read, write, or modify) some database
object (such as a relation, view, or index) or to run
certain DBMS utilities.
Privileges are granted to users to accomplish the
tasks required for their jobs. As excessive
granting of unnecessary privileges can
compromise security: a privilege should only be
granted to a user if that user cannot accomplish
his or her work without that privilege. A user
who creates a database object such as a relation
or a view automatically gets all privileges on
that object. The DBMS subsequently keeps track
of how these privileges are granted to other
users, and possibly revoked, and ensures that at
all times only users with necessary privileges
can access an object.
Access Control systems include:
1. File permissions - create, read, edit or delete on a file server.
2. Program permissions - right to execute a program on an
application server.
3. Data rights - right to retrieve or update information in a database.
User Identification /Authentication
• A basic security requirement is that you must know your users.
You must identify them before you can determine their privileges
and access rights, and so that you can audit their actions upon
the data. User can be authenticated in many ways before they
are allowed to create database. Database authentication includes
both identification and authentication of users. External
authentication can be performed by the operating system or
network service. Also the user authentication can be defined by
Secure Socket Layer (SSL), through enterprise roles, through
middle tier server authentication also known as proxy
authentication.
• This is the very basic requirement to ensure security
since the identification process defines a set of people
that are allowed to access data. To ensure security, the
identity is authenticated and it keeps the sensitive data
secure and from being modified by unauthorized user.
• Attacker can take different approaches like bypass
authentication, Default Password, privilege escalation,
Password Guessing by brute force and rainbow attack
when they attempt to compromise user identification
and authentication.
Accountability and auditing
Auditing is the monitoring and recording of configured •
database actions, from both database users and non
.database users
• Accounting is the process of maintaining an audit
trail for user actions on the system.
Accountability and audit checks are needed to
ensure physical integrity of the data which
requires defined access to the databases and that
is handled through auditing and for keeping the
records.
• If a user has managed to authenticate
successfully and tries to access a resource, both
successful and unsuccessful attempts should be
monitored by the system, and access attempts
and their status should appear in the audit trail
files.
• Discretionary Access Control Based on Granting / Revoking
of Privileges
• Most commercial DBMSs provide an approach to managing
privileges that uses SQL called Discretionary Access Control
(DAC). The SQL standard supports DAC through the GRANT
and REVOKE commands. The GRANT command gives
privileges to users, and the REVOKE command takes away
privileges.
• Discretionary access control, while effective, has certain
weaknesses. In particular, an unauthorized user can trick an
authorized user into disclosing sensitive data. For example,
an unauthorized user such as an Assistant in the
DreamHome case study can create a relation to capture new
client details and give access privileges to an authorized
user such as a Manager without their knowledge.
• The Assistant can then alter some application programs that
the Manager uses to include some hidden instruction to
copy sensitive data from the Client relation that only the
Manager has access to, into the new relation created by the
Assistant. The unauthorized user, namely the Assistant, now
has a copy of the sensitive data, namely new clients of
DreamHome, and to cover up his or her actions now
modifies the altered application programs back to the
original form.
• Clearly, an additional security approach is required to
remove such loopholes, and this requirement is met in an
approach called Mandatory Access Control (MAC), which we
discuss in detail below. Although discretionary access
control is typically provided by most commercial DBMSs,
only some also provide support for mandatory access
control.
Mandatory Access Control (MAC)
• Mandatory Access Control (MAC) is based on system-wide policies
that cannot be changed by individual users. In this approach each
database object is assigned a security class and each user is assigned
a clearance for a security class, and rules are imposed on reading
and writing of database objects by users. The DBMS determines
whether a given user can read or write a given object based on
certain rules that involve the security level of the object and the
clearance of the user. These rules seek to ensure that sensitive data
can never be passed on to another user without the necessary
clearance. The SQL standard does not include support for MAC.
• A popular model for MAC is called Bell–LaPadula model (Bell and
LaPadula, 1974), which is described in terms of objects (such as
relations, views, tuples, and attributes), subjects (such as users and
programs), security classes, and clearances. Each database object is
assigned a security class, and each subject is assigned a clearance
for a security class.
• The security classes in a system are ordered, with a most
secure class and a least secure class. we assume that there
are four classes: top secret (TS), secret (S), confidential (C),
and unclassified (U), and we denote the class of an object or
subject A as class (A). Therefore for this system, TS > S > C >
U, where A > B means that class A data has a higher security
level than class B data. The Bell–LaPadula model imposes
two restrictions on all reads and writes of database objects:
1. Simple Security Property: Subject S is allowed to read
object O only if class (S) >= class (O). For example, a user
with TS clearance can read a relation with C clearance, but a
user with C clearance cannot read a relation with TS
classification.
• 2. *_Property: Subject S is allowed to write object O only if
class (S) <=class (O).
For example, a user with S clearance can only write objects
with S or TS classification.
• If discretionary access controls are also specified, these
rules represent additional restrictions. Thus to read or
write a database object, a user must have the necessary
privileges provided through the SQL GRANT command
and the security classes of the user and the object must
satisfy the restrictions given above.
• Although mandatory access control does address a major
weakness of discretionary access control, a major
disadvantage of MAC is the rigidity of the MAC
environment. For example, MAC policies are often
established by database or systems administrators, and
the classification mechanisms are sometimes considered
to be inflexible.
Views
• View A view is the dynamic result of one or more relational
operations operating on the base relations to produce another
relation. A view is a virtual relation that does not actually exist
in the database, but is produced upon request by a particular
user, at the time of request.
• The view mechanism provides a powerful and flexible security
mechanism by hiding parts of the database from certain users.
• The user is not aware of the existence of any attributes or
rows that are missing from the view. A view can be defined
over several relations with a user being granted the
appropriate privilege to use it, but not to use the base
relations. In this way, using a view is more restrictive than
simply having certain privileges granted to a user on the base
relation(s).
Backup and Recovery
• Backup The process of periodically taking a copy of the
database and log file (and possibly programs) on to offline
storage media.
• A DBMS should provide backup facilities to assist with the
recovery of a database following failure. It is always advisable
to make backup copies of the database and log file at regular
intervals and to ensure that the copies are in a secure
location. In the event of a failure that renders the database
unusable, the backup copy and the details captured in the
log file are used to restore the database to the latest possible
consistent state.
• Journaling The process of keeping and maintaining a log file
(or journal) of all changes made to the database to enable
recovery to be undertaken effectively in the event of a
failure.
• A DBMS should provide logging facilities, sometimes referred
to as journaling, which keep track of the current state of
transactions and database changes, to provide support for
recovery procedures.
• The advantage of journaling is that, in the event of a failure,
the database can be recovered to its last known consistent
state using a backup copy of the database and the
information contained in the log file. If no journaling is
enabled on a failed system, the only means of recovery is to
restore the database using the latest backup version of the
database. However, without a log file, any changes made after
the last backup to the database will be lost.
Integrity
• Integrity constraints also contribute to maintaining a secure
database system by preventing data from becoming invalid,
and hence giving misleading or incorrect results.
Encryption
Encryption The encoding of the data by a special algorithm that renders
the data unreadable by any program without the decryption key.
• If a database system holds particularly sensitive data, it may be
deemed necessary to encode it as a precaution against possible
external threats or attempts to access it. Some DBMSs provide an
encryption facility for this purpose.
• The DBMS can access the data (after decoding it), although there is a
degradation in performance because of the time taken to decode it.
Encryption also protects data transmitted over communication lines.
• There are a number of techniques for encoding data to conceal the
information; some are termed ‘irreversible’ and others ‘reversible’.
Irreversible techniques, as the name implies, do not permit the
original data to be known. However, the data can be used to obtain
valid statistical information. Reversible techniques are more
commonly used.
To transmit data securely over insecure networks requires the use
of a cryptosystem, which includes:
• an encryption key to encrypt the data (plaintext);
• an encryption algorithm that, with the encryption key,
transforms the plaintext into ciphertext;
• a decryption key to decrypt the ciphertext;
• a decryption algorithm that, with the decryption key, transforms
the ciphertext back into plaintext.
• One technique, called symmetric encryption, uses the same key
for both encryption and decryption and relies on safe
communication lines for exchanging the key. However, most
users do not have access to a secure communication line and, to
be really secure, the keys need to be as long as the message
(Leiss, 1982). However, most working systems are based on user
keys shorter than the message. One scheme used for encryption
is the Data Encryption Standard (DES),
• which is a standard encryption algorithm developed by IBM.
This scheme uses one key for both encryption and decryption,
which must be kept secret, although the algorithm need not be.
The algorithm transforms each 64-bit block of plaintext using a
56-bit key.
• The DES is not universally regarded as being very secure, and
some authors maintain that a larger key is required. For
example, a scheme called PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) uses a 128-
bit symmetric algorithm for bulk encryption of the data it sends.
• Keys with 64 bits are now probably breakable by major
governments with special hardware, albeit at substantial cost.
However, this technology will be within the reach of organized
criminals, major organizations, and smaller governments in a
few years. While it is envisaged that keys with 80 bits will also
become breakable in the future, it is probable that keys with
128 bits will remain unbeakable for the foreseeable future.
• The terms ‘strong authentication’ and ‘weak authentication’ are
sometimes used to distinguish between algorithms that, to all
intents and purposes, cannot be broken with existing technologies
and knowledge (strong) from those that can be (weak).
• Another type of cryptosystem uses different keys for encryption
and decryption, and is referred to as asymmetric encryption. One
example is public key cryptosystems, which use two keys, one of
which is public and the other private. The encryption algorithm
may also be public, so that anyone wishing to send a user a
message can use the user’s publicly known key in conjunction
with the algorithm to encrypt it. Only the owner of the private key
can then decipher the message. Public key cryptosystems can also
be used to send a ‘digital signature’ with a message and prove
that the message came from the person who claimed to have sent
it. The most well known asymmetric encryption is RSA (the name
is derived from the initials of the three designers of the
algorithm).
Generally, symmetric algorithms are much faster
to execute on a computer than those that are
asymmetric. However, in practice, they are often
used together, so that a public key algorithm is
used to encrypt a randomly generated
encryption key, and the random key is used to
encrypt the actual message using a symmetric
algorithm.
RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks)
• The hardware that the DBMS is running on must be fault-
tolerant, meaning that the DBMS should continue to operate
even if one of the hardware components fails. This suggests
having redundant components that can be seamlessly integrated
into the working system whenever there is one or more
component failures.
• The main hardware components that should be fault-tolerant
include disk drives, disk controllers, CPU, power supplies, and
cooling fans. Disk drives are the most vulnerable components
with the shortest times between failure of any of the hardware
components. One solution is the use of Redundant Array of
Independent Disks (RAID) technology.
• RAID originally stood for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks,
but more recently
• the ‘I’ in RAID has come to stand for Independent. RAID works on
having a large disk array comprising an arrangement of several
• Performance is increased through data striping: the data is
segmented into equal-size partitions (the striping unit)
which are transparently distributed across multiple disks.
This gives the appearance of a single large, fast disk where
in actual fact the data is distributed across several smaller
disks. Striping improves overall I/O performance by
allowing multiple I/Os to be serviced in parallel. At the
same time, data striping also balances the load among
disks.
• Reliability is improved through storing redundant
information across the disks using a parity scheme or an
error-correcting scheme, such as Reed-Solomon codes
(see, for example, Pless, 1989). In a parity scheme, each
byte may have a parity bit associated with it that records
whether the number of bits in the byte that are set to 1 is
even or odd.
• If the number of bits in the byte becomes corrupted, the
new parity of the byte will not match the stored parity.
Similarly, if the stored parity bit becomes corrupted, it
will not match the data in the byte. Error-correcting
schemes store two or more additional bits, and can
reconstruct the original data if a single bit becomes
corrupt. These schemes can be used through striping
bytes across disks.
• There are a number of different disk configurations with
RAID, termed RAID levels.
• A brief description of each RAID level is given below
together with a diagrammatic representation for each of
the main levels in Figure 19.4. In this figure the numbers
represent sequential data blocks and the letters indicate
segments of a data block.
• RAID 1 – Mirrored This level maintains (mirrors) two identical
copies of the data across different disks. To maintain
consistency in the presence of disk failure, writes may not be
performed simultaneously. This is the most expensive storage
solution.
• RAID 0 +1 – Nonredundant and Mirrored This level combines
striping and mirroring.
• RAID 2 – Memory-Style Error-Correcting Codes With this level,
the striping unit is a single bit and Hamming codes are used as
the redundancy scheme.
• RAID 3 – Bit-Interleaved Parity This level provides redundancy
by storing parity information on a single disk in the array. This
parity information can be used to recover the data on other
disks should they fail. This level uses less storage space than
RAID 1 but the parity disk can become a bottleneck.
• RAID 4 – Block-Interleaved Parity With this level, the striping unit
is a disk block – a parity block is maintained on a separate disk
for corresponding blocks from a number of other disks. If one of
the disks fails, the parity block can be used with the
corresponding blocks from the other disks to restore the blocks
of the failed disk. n RAID 5 – Block-Interleaved Distributed Parity
This level uses parity data for redundancy in a similar way to
RAID 3 but stripes the parity data across all the disks, similar to
the way in which the source data is striped. This alleviates the
bottleneck on the parity disk.
• RAID 6 – P+Q Redundancy This level is similar to RAID 5 but
additional redundant data is maintained to protect against
multiple disk failures.
DBMSs and Web Security
• Internet communication relies on TCP/IP as the underlying
protocol. However, TCP/IP and HTTP were not designed with
security in mind.
• Without special software, all Internet traffic travels ‘in the clear’
and anyone who monitors traffic can read it. This form of attack is
relatively easy to perpetrate using freely available ‘packet sniffing’
software, since the Internet has traditionally been an open
network.
• Consider, for example, the implications of credit card numbers
being intercepted by unethical parties during transmission when
customers use their cards to purchase products over the Internet.
The challenge is to transmit and receive information over the
Internet while ensuring that:
 it is inaccessible to anyone but the sender and receiver (privacy);
 it has not been changed during transmission (integrity);
 the receiver can be sure it came from the sender (authenticity);
 the sender can be sure the receiver is genuine (non-fabrication);
 the sender cannot deny he or she sent it (non-repudiation).
• However, protecting the transaction only solves part of
the problem. Once the information has reached the Web
server, it must also be protected there.
• With the three-tier architecture that is popular in a Web
environment, we also have the complexity of ensuring
secure access to, and of, the database. Today, most parts
of such architecture can be secured, but it generally
requires different products and mechanisms.
• One other aspect of security that has to be addressed in
the Web environment is that information transmitted to
the client’s machine may have executable content. For
example, HTML pages may contain ActiveX controls,
JavaScript/VBScript, and/or one or more Java applets.
Executable content can perform the following malicious
actions, and measures need to be taken to prevent them:
 corrupt data or the execution state of programs;
 reformat complete disks;
 perform a total system shutdown;
 collect and download confidential data, such as files or
passwords, to another site;
 users identity and impersonate the user or user’s computer to
attack other targets on the network;
 lock up resources making them unavailable for legitimate users
and programs;
 ause non-fatal but unwelcome effects, especially on output
devices.
• In earlier sections we identified general security mechanisms for
database systems. However, the increasing accessibility of
databases on the public Internet and private intranets requires a
re-analysis and extension of these approaches.
Proxy Servers
• In a Web environment, a proxy server is a computer that sits
between a Web browser and a Web server. It intercepts all
requests to the Web server to determine if it can fulfill the
requests itself. If not, it forwards the requests to the Web server.
Proxy servers have two main purposes: to improve performance
and filter requests.
Improve performance
• Since a proxy server saves the results of all requests for a certain
amount of time, it can significantly improve performance for
groups of users. For example, assume that user A and user B access
the Web through a proxy server.
• First, user A requests a certain Web page and, slightly later, user B
requests the same page. Instead of forwarding the request to the
Web server where that page resides, the proxy server simply
returns the cached page that it had already fetched for user A.
• Since the proxy server is often on the same network as the
user, this is a much faster operation. Real proxy servers, such
as those employed by Compuserve and America Online, can
support thousands of users.
Filter requests
• Proxy servers can also be used to filter requests. For example,
an organization might use a proxy server to prevent its
employees from accessing a specific set of Web sites.
Firewalls
• The standard security advice is to ensure that Web servers are
unconnected to any in-house networks and regularly backed
up to recover from inevitable attacks. When the Web server
has to be connected to an internal network, for example to
access the company database, firewall technology can help to
prevent unauthorized access, provided it has been installed
and maintained correctly.
• A firewall is a system designed to prevent unauthorized access to
or from a private Network. Firewalls can be implemented in both
hardware and software, or a combination of both. They are
frequently used to prevent unauthorized Internet users from
accessing private networks connected to the Internet, especially
intranets. All messages entering or leaving the intranet pass
through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks
those that do not meet the specified security criteria.
There are several types of firewall technique:
• Packet filter, which looks at each packet entering or leaving the
network and accepts or rejects it based on user-defined rules.
Packet filtering is a fairly effective mechanism and transparent to
users, but can be difficult to configure. In addition, it is
susceptible to IP spoofing. (IP spoofing is a technique used to gain
unauthorized access to computers, whereby the intruder sends
messages to a computer with an IP address indicating that the
message is coming from a trusted port.)
Application gateway, which applies security mechanisms to
specific applications, such as FTP and Telnet servers. This is
a very effective mechanism, but can degrade performance.
Circuit-level gateway, which applies security mechanisms
when a TCP or UDP (User Datagram Protocol) connection
is established. Once the connection has been made,
packets can flow between the hosts without further
checking.
Proxy server, which intercepts all messages entering and
leaving the network. The proxy server in effect hides the
true network addresses.
• In practice, many firewalls provide more than one of these
techniques. A firewall is considered a first line of defense
in protecting private information. For greater security, data
can be encrypted.
• Attempt the following Questions.
Submission date up to next week Friday.

1. Describe the basic database threats?

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Stay Safe