Chapter Two

Database Security and Authorization

1 Introduction to Database Security

 Database security is the term used to describe protection of the data and database resources from illegal
access and misuse by un authorized people.
 Security issues
 Legal and ethical issues: The right to access certain information. Some information may also need
to be kept private and cannot be accessed by unauthorized people.
 Policy issues: At the governmental, institutional and corporate level.
 System-related issues: Such as the system level at which various security functions should be
enforced. For example, Hardware, OS or DBMS level.
1.1 Introduction to Database Security Issues
 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
 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
 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.
 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.

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  Statistical database security problem should be handled using inference control measures
 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.
 Another security issue is data encryption, which is used to protect sensitive data (such as credit card
numbers) that is being transmitted via some type of communication network
 Using encryption method, the data is encoded using some encoding algorithm.
 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
1.2 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.
 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 discretionary and 4 is used to control mandatory
authorization
1.3 Access Protection, User Accounts, and Database Audits
 Whenever a person or group of persons 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

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  The user must log in to the DBMS by entering account id and password whenever database access is
needed
 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
 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.
2. Discretionary Access Control
 This is the typical method of enforcing access control in a database based on the granting and revoking
privileges.

2.1 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.
 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 as adding or removing attributes from relations;
 the DROP privilege, to delete relations or views; ].
 The second level of privileges applies to the relation level
 This includes privileges on 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)

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  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.
 To control the granting and revoking of relation privileges, each relation R in a database is assigned an 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.
 DBA can assign an 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.
 In SQL, the following types of privileges can be granted on each individual relation R:
 SELECT (retrieval or read) privilege on R:
 Gives a retrieval privilege to the account
 This gives the account holder 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.
 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
 The following types of privileges can be granted on each individual relation R :
 REFERENCES privilege on R:
 This gives the account holder the right 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
2.2 Specifying Privileges Using Views
 The mechanism of views is an important discretionary authorization mechanism. For example,

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  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
2.3 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.
2.4 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.
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 CREATE TABLE TO A1;

 The same effect can be accomplished by having the DBA issue a CREATE SCHEMA command as follows:

CREATE SCHAMA schema1 AUTHORIZATION A1;

 User account A1 can create tables under the schema called schema1.
 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.

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  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;

 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
 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.
 Example (cont.…)
 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:

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 GRANT SELECT ON A3EMPLOYEE TO A3

WITH GRANT OPTION;

 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
3 Mandatory Access Control and Role-Based Access Control for Multilevel Security
 The discretionary access control techniques of granting and revoking privileges on relations has been the
main security mechanism for relational database systems.
 This is an all-or-nothing method:
 A user either has or does not have a certain privilege.
 In many applications, additional security policy is needed that classifies data and users based on security
classes.
 This approach as mandatory access control, would typically be combined with the discretionary
access control mechanisms.
 3 Mandatory Access Control and Role-Based Access Control for Multilevel Security (cont…)
 Typical security classes are top secret (TS), secret (S), confidential (C), and unclassified (U), where TS is
the highest level and U the lowest: TS ≥ S ≥ C ≥ U
 The commonly used model for multilevel security, classifies each subject (user, account, program) and
object (relation, tuple, column, view, operation) into one of the security classifications, T, S, C, or U:
 Clearance (classification) of a subject S as class(S) and to the classification of an object O as
class(O).
 Two restrictions are enforced on data access based on the subject/object classifications:
 Simple security property: A subject S is not allowed read access to an object O unless class(S) ≥
class(O)
 Mandatory Access Control and Role-Based Access Control for Multilevel Security (cont…)
 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.

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  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.

3.1 Comparing Discretionary Access Control and Mandatory Access Control

 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
 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.
3.2 Role-Based Access Control
 Role-based access control (RBAC) has emerged rapidly in the 1990s as a proven technology for managing
and enforcing security in large-scale enterprise wide systems.

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  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
 RBAC appears to be a viable alternative to discretionary and mandatory access controls; it ensures that only
authorized users are given access to certain data or resources.
 Many DBMSs have allowed the concept of roles, where privileges can be assigned to roles.
 Role hierarchy in RBAC is a natural way of organizing roles to reflect the organization’s lines of authority
and responsibility.
 Using RBAC model is highly desirable goal for addressing the key security requirements of Web-based
applications.
 In contrast, discretionary access control (DAC) and mandatory access control (MAC) models lack
capabilities needed to support the security requirements emerging enterprises and Web-based applications.
4 Introduction to Statistical Database Security
 Statistical databases are used mainly to produce statistics on various populations.
 The database may contain confidential data on individuals, which should be protected from user access.
 Users are permitted to retrieve statistical information on the populations, such as averages, sums, counts,
maximums, minimums, and standard deviations.
 A population is a set of tuples of a relation (table) that satisfy some selection condition.
 Statistical queries involve applying statistical functions to a population of tuples.
 For example, we may want to retrieve the number of individuals in a population or the average income in
the population.
 However, statistical users are not allowed to retrieve individual data, such as the income of a specific person.
 Statistical database security techniques must prohibit the retrieval of individual data.
 This can be achieved by prohibiting queries that retrieve attribute values and by allowing only queries that
involve statistical aggregate functions such as COUNT, SUM, MIN, MAX, AVERAGE, and STANDARD
DEVIATION.
 Such queries are sometimes called statistical queries.
 It is DBMS’s responsibility to ensure confidentiality of information about individuals, while still providing
useful statistical summaries of data about those individuals to users.
 Provision of privacy protection of users in a statistical database is paramount.

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  In some cases it is possible to infer the values of individual tuples from a sequence statistical queries.
 This is particularly true when the conditions result in a population consisting of a small number of
tuples.
5. Encryption and Public Key Infrastructures
 Encryption is a means of maintaining secure data in an insecure environment.
 Encryption consists of applying an encryption algorithm to data using some pre specified encryption key.
 The resulting data has to be decrypted using a decryption key to recover the original data.
 Public Key Encryption
 The two keys used for public key encryption are referred to as the public key and the private key.
 the private key is kept secret.
 A public key encryption scheme or infrastructure, has six ingredients:
 Plaintext: This is the data or readable message that is fed into the algorithm as input.
 Encryption algorithm: The encryption algorithm performs various transformations on the plaintext.
 Public and private keys: These are pair of keys that have been selected so that if one is used for
encryption, the other is used for decryption.
 Public Key Encryption (cont…)
 A public key encryption scheme, or infrastructure, has six ingredients (cont…):
 Ciphertext:
 This is the scrambled message produced as output. It depends on the plaintext and the key.
 For a given message, two different keys will produce two different ciphertexts.
 Decryption algorithm:
 This algorithm accepts the ciphertext and the matching key and produces the original
plaintext.
 Public Key Encryption (cont…)
 Public key is made for public and private key is known only by owner.
 A general-purpose public key cryptographic algorithm relies on
 one key for encryption and
 A different but related key for decryption.

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