Databases are vitally crucial to modern businesses across all market sectors. They are the repository of an organization’s information resources, essential assets used to run...
Databases are vitally crucial to modern businesses across all market sectors. They are the repository of an organization’s information resources, essential assets used to run its business and gain an edge over its competitors. Big data and the Internet of Things (IoT) have introduced new avenues for producing information that needs to be stored in databases for business purposes, such as predictive analytics and understanding customer trends.
The value attached to enterprise data must be balanced. Losing a single mission-critical database can spell disaster for a company. Sales or services can be crippled, resulting in the loss of customers and revenue. Having the information in a database compromised by falling into the wrong hands can ruin a business with financial repercussions and far-reaching impacts on its reputation. Keeping databases operational and protected is an essential component of modern business Strategy.
Unfortunately, the significance of these data stores makes them an inviting target for individuals and groups with malicious intentions. Sometimes, the goal may be to bring systems down and cause chaos to the associated organizations. Financial gain or industrial espionage is often at the root of other attempts to compromise or strike an organization’s databases. Hosting database instances with cloud providers and widespread use of IoT devices presents additional targets that hackers can threaten.
Protecting these valuable assets is complicated because an attack can be perpetrated by corporate insiders and unscrupulous third parties. Verizon’s most recent data breach investigation report published in May 2019 indicates that 69% of data breaches were committed by outsiders, with 34% involving internal actors. In some cases, insiders and outsiders worked together to compromise corporate data assets. Organized criminal groups were involved in 39% of incidents, with nation-states and affiliated entities responsible for 23% of breaches.
This blog will investigate security threats and policies that can impact a company’s databases. Knowing how your databases can be attacked is the first step in developing methods and adopting best practices that offer enhanced protection to these valuable information assets.
There are three essential goals associated with database security. In broad terms, the concerns are the systems’ confidentiality, integrity, and availability, also known as the CIA triad. These aspects need to be the focus of security teams and defensive strategies.
Different types of database attacks may be directed at any or all of these general categories. In some cases, the goal may be to simply bring down the system, causing associated chaos to the enterprise. This type of attack is easily identifiable, though preventing it and recovering from its consequences are much more difficult objectives to accomplish.
Database integrity and confidentiality can be compromised using more subtle methods that can escape detection for an extended time. Security lapses of this type can entail extensive damage with ramifications far beyond correcting the problems that allowed the attack to be successful. Restitution may be required for entities whose confidential data has been compromised, and financial penalties can be imposed by regulatory agencies aimed at lax or incomplete security standards.
The three components of the CIA triad can be attacked or compromised in many ways. They present different challenges for organizations to address successfully and can be conducted by internal or external entities.
Sensitive enterprise data should be protected by restricting access to all but essential personnel and procedures. This is usually accomplished by providing appropriate access levels for IT teams to perform their role concerning the data. Most users cannot access the data and have no justifiable need to try.
Unfortunately, elevated privileges are impossible to totally avoid in an IT environment. Someone needs root access to systems to perform daily activities such as installing software or creating user accounts. Credentials that enjoy elevated privileges need to be guarded against misuse or from being compromised and falling into the hands of cybercriminals.
Abusing the legitimate privileges that a user possesses is the hallmark of an insider attack. These threats are hazardous due to the methods individuals can use to mask their activities. Heightened privileges can be used to initiate malware infections, directly steal data, and make it very difficult to track down the perpetrator.
This type of privilege abuse can come from current or former employees. Strict access management controls can minimize the risk by immediately removing elevated privileges from users who no longer need them, including those who have left the company.
Malware is the accepted term for malicious software. It refers to software whose purpose is to cause damage to computer systems and networks or gain unauthorized access to sensitive information. Several different forms of malware use various techniques to attack their victims. Malware can be categorized by how it spreads and what it does once it accesses a system.
Malware variants infect their targets in three distinct ways.
Malware is also classified by what it does to systems once it successfully gains access. Here are some of the significant types of malware that corporations are likely to encounter.
Numerous individuals from various companies often handle the storage media used for backups. Sending tapes offsite exposes the data on those tapes to individuals beyond the control of the corporation whose data is at risk. The primary defense against unauthorized access to this information is to encrypt the data before or during the backup procedure, making it impossible for nefarious actors to use it.
As organizations continue to move more of their data to the public cloud, misconfigurations can disastrously impact security. Infrastructure as code (IaC) templates are becoming more prevalent as a method of streamlining cloud implementations and are often constructed without the appropriate security controls. By default, many cloud databases are not encrypted, exposing their information to anyone who obtains the necessary level of access.
While at first glance, it appears to be a monumental task to protect an organization’s database, there are methods that, when properly implemented, can mitigate the risks. Failure to adhere to the following best practices will result in databases that can be compromised and attacked, inflicting severe damage to the enterprise.
A viable database monitoring strategy should focus on specific security aspects such as critical databases, privileged accounts, policy violations, and objects containing sensitive information. Suspicious user activity identified through monitoring warrants a thorough investigation to determine if it may indicate an attack from internal or external sources.
Phishing with infected emails is a prevalent method of attempting to compromise organizational data security. C-Suite executives are tempting targets for these attacks, as they often have high-level privileges that make their credentials more valuable than those of the average employee. The use of artificial intelligence techniques to create deep fakes makes it even harder to distinguish the validity of electronic communication. They open the door to new methods to entice individuals to unwittingly compromise the data their organization needs to Survive.
No organization knowingly allows its databases to be compromised using previously discussed methods. Gaining access to sensitive databases or embedding malware into systems can be done in many ways. They all can be mitigated, if not eliminated, with proper training and diligence, strong security policies, and comprehensive monitoring. Organizations that value their data need to take risks seriously. They need to do everything in their power to thwart the efforts of cybercriminals to cause damage to them and their customers.
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