Discuss And Compare The Various Security Features

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Introduction This essay discusses database security and its importance along with the features provided by databases for security combined with methods an organisation should use for enhancing that security. As with any other part of any computer system database security is very important – but with databases there is the extra element of risk in that the database is often where vital data is stored - and decisions made in an organisation are often taken based on results generated from data held in and generated from company databases. This and other security considerations mean that database security can be thought of separately and in addition to the rest of an organisations security infrastructure. Access Control The first element to database security is access control. Often, in an organisation you would not want even validated users accessing a RDBMS directly. Access to a database may often by via an application program, website or some other means. This protects the data in the database as users cannot access of modify either the data in the database or how the database is set-up internally i.e. its tables, triggers, indexes etc. Only the Database Administrator (DBA) will have full direct access to the database and they will control the creation and management of all other access to the system. Even the access of an application to a database will be configured to be through a particular account – provided a 'two-phase' security for the database as both the system and then the database would have to be compromised for a break-in to succeed. As part of the database design there will normally be some careful thought given to the access levels required to different parts of the database. For a large decentralised database different departments will need access to different tables and other elements of the database system (Imran, 2009). Even in smaller

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