Importance of Database Security in Maintaining Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability of Information

This report analyzes the importance of database security in maintaining confidentiality, integrity and availability of information. It discusses the various threats to database security and ways to achieve it. Techniques like authorization, backup, flow control and audit trials are discussed.

Database Management System

1 | P a g e
Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Database Security..................................................................................................................................2
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................5
References.............................................................................................................................................7

2 | P a g e
Introduction
The topic researched in this report is database security which is under the umbrella of
information security as it protects the data and assures that confidentiality, integrity and
availability is maintained. The database security requires the confidentiality, integrity and
availability of information. It follows CIA trait, confidentiality is the important aspect that is
achieved by encrypting the data. Integrity is another important aspect in database security as
it ensures that privileges to access the information is given to correct users (Alruwaili &
Almutairi. 2017). Availability on the other hand, states that data should remain available for
the users all the time. Various research papers about the database security is analysed and
the report is the analysis of them. The importance and the threats of database security are
listed (Alruwaili & Almutairi. 2017). The ways in which database security can be achieved
is listed below.
Database Security
In the recent years, database security is one of the important tasks as all the information is
stored over database technologies. Thus, it is important to maintain the confidentiality,
integrity and availability of data (Li, Liu, Sun, Wang & Wang, International Business
Machines Corp, 2018). Database security is the growing concern as they allow the data to be
shared and accessed electronically. It is important to make sure that integrity of data is
maintained and data is not accessed by any unauthorised user (Meg coffin, 2017). In the
paper, it is mentioned that database security ensures that only authenticated users are
allowed to perform authorised activities. It makes sure that data is protected from all the
malicious activities. Database hacking is increasing with time and the reason behind this is
malwares or the errors made in the security process of database (Li, et. al, 2018) The
increasing number of attacks has increased the chances of database breaches (Meg coffin,
2017).
In the other research paper, it was said that database security is an important component and
it can be achieved by defining access control, application access, vulnerability and auditing
mechanism. The primary way through which database security can be achieved is limiting
the access of information (Meg coffin, 2017). An access control list is used to allow only
valid user to access the information by disallowing the privileges to unauthorised user to

3 | P a g e
access specific resources. Database vulnerabilities need to be checked so that security threats
could be minimised (Muralidharan & Wong, 2016). To, to make sure that no vulnerability
has attacked the database, the concept of auditing is used. It tracks the activities of database
access so that database is monitored regularly. It is said that database security is an
important part in maintaining the overall security. The only motive of having strong
database security is to prevent unauthorised access of information and prevent unauthorised
access. It makes sure that data is available to the authorised user at all the time
(Muralidharan & Wong, 2016). Database security is a crucial part of an organisation as it
enhances the order in which activities should operate (Chandrashekhar, Ahmed & Rahul,
2015). It is an effort to protect the organisational data from the threat of data misuse or loss.
These threats can lead to loss of integrity of data and access. It is important to understand the
concern of database security, as most of large or small companies store their confidential
data in eth database technologies (Rodniansky and International Business Machines Corp,
2016). Thus, the information needs to be secured so that there is no loss in organisational
policies.
There are various threats that exist in database that can affect the security of an organisation.
Thus, the overall objective of database security is it protects the database from all eth
accidents so that integrity and reliability of data is not lost. The database security disallows
any unauthorised user to make changes (Misra, Sing & Tripathi, 2016). It is the duty of
database manger to regularly monitor the system and iddatabasentify the threats so that risk
could be mitigated. The major threat that can exist in the e system is loss of availability that
does not allow even the valid user to access the information. This in turn causes halt in all
the activities (Chandrashekhar, Ahmed & Rahul, 2015). The other threat is privileges
elevation. It occurs when user converts the privileges from other users. Apart from that it
can occur due to weak audit trail (Rodniansky and International Business Machines Corp,
2016) . If the security is not up to the mark it can lead to data corruption, network flooding
or resource overloading. Security of databases involves restoring the database to a safe mode
after failure. There are various types of security issues that are related to database (Misra,
Singh & Tripathi, 2016). The database security can be maintained by developing
architecture system. The first phase of the architecture system is assessment and analysis of
all the threats. The security threats are identified in the first phase. Then the next step is to
design and model the system by creating security protocols and policies. Then the policies
that are designed are deployed in the system so that information is safe from all the

4 | P a g e
unauthorised users (Li, Qian, Chen, Hasan & Shao, 2016). The last stage is management
and support that monitors all the activities and make changes wherever needed (Nehra and
Gulati, 2016)
.
(Source: https://www.google.co.in/search?sa=G&hl=en-IN&q=mintzberg
%27s+modes+of+strategic+decision+making&tbm=isch&tbs=simg)
Techniques for database security are authorization of data, maintain back up and flow
control and audit trials. The access control is maintained so that integrity constraints are
maintained. The data should be encrypted so that even if it is accessed by unauthorised user
they are not able to read the actual information (Nehra & Gulati, 2016). Database security
can be improved by installing fire walls, setting up isolation with the data, authentication
with valid user so that data is used only by valid user. Database security can be achieved by
encrypted the information so that whole message is secured at the network layer. The
database should be secured so that all the sensitive information could be secured. Database
security is one of the main concerns of database management system (Wei, Cai, Liu, Wang
& Gao, 2018). It is a difficult concern but it allows organisation to run all the operations
smoothly. The database security requirements are different from other security issue (Guo,
Qian & Yang, 2016).
In the paper it is said that database security can be maintained by access control, audit ability
and authentication of users so that information remains available. Some of the techniques

5 | P a g e
that are used in database security are authentication, confidentiality and audit trails so that
security is achieved (Wei, Cai, Liu, Wang & Gao, 2018). Security is one of the important
issues in database management system. Database security is the backbone of an organisation
as all the financial and sensitive data is stored in the company (Rodnianskya & International
Business Machines Corp, 2017). Thus, from all the research it can be said that database
security is an integral and essential part of every organisation.

6 | P a g e
Conclusion
It can be concluded; from the above discussion that database security is an important part for
every organisation. It can be achieved by protecting all eth SQL injections by parameterizing
the queries in the database. It is important to safeguard the information from the hackers and
threats. Database security makes sure that integrity, confidentiality of data packets is not
breached.

7 | P a g e
References
Alruwaili. A. & Almutairi. A. (2017). Security in Database Systems. Retrieved from
https://globaljournals.org/GJCST_Volume12/3-Security-in-Database-Systems.pdf.
Chandrashekhar, A.M., Ahmed, S.T. & Rahul, N., 2015. Analysis of Security Threats to
Database Storage Systems. International Journal of Advanced Research in data
mining and Cloud computing (IJARDC), 3(5).
Guo, M., Qian, K. & Yang, L., 2016, June. Hands-on labs for learning mobile and NoSQL
database security. In Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC),
2016 IEEE 40th Annual (Vol. 2, pp. 606-607). IEEE.
Li, L., Qian, K., Chen, Q., Hasan, R. & Shao, G., 2016, September. Developing hands-on
labware for emerging database security. In Proceedings of the 17th Annual
Conference on Information Technology Education (pp. 60-64). ACM.
Li, S., Liu, X.P., Sun, S.Y., Wang, H. & Wang, J., International Business Machines Corp,
2018. Generating a Virtual Database to Test Data Security of a Real Database. U.S.
Patent Application 15/814,560.
Meg coffin. M. (2017). Database Security: What Students Need to Know. Retrieved from
http://jite.org/documents/Vol9/JITEv9IIPp061-077Murray804.pdf.
Misra, A.K., Singh, S.P. and Tripathi, U.N., 2016. Using Concurrent Updataion
Management Protocol to Protect Distributed Database from Concurrency Control
Problems and Security Threats. International Journal of Engineering
Science, 5290(3), pp. 30-90.
Muralidharan, N., & Wong, D. M. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 9,323,922. Washington, DC: U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office.
Nehra, V. & Gulati, N., 2016. Database Security against SQL Injection Attacks Using Three
Level Security Approach. International Journal of Engineering Science, 4650(5),
pp.78-90.

8 | P a g e
Rodniansky, L., International Business Machines Corp, 2016. Database Queries Integrity
and External Security Mechanisms in Database Forensic Examinations. U.S. Patent
Application 14/811,153.
Rodniansky, L., International Business Machines Corp, 2017. Hybrid database access
control in external-to-database security systems. U.S. Patent Application
15/151,974.
Wei, C. Y., Cai, X. Q., Liu, B., Wang, T. Y., & Gao, F. (2018). A generic construction of
quantum-oblivious-key-transfer-based private query with ideal database security and
zero failure. IEEE Transactions on Computers, 67(1), 2-8.