Service · Cybersecurity

Database security

The database concentrates everything your company knows, in the format easiest to copy wholesale. Paradoxically it is often less guarded than the application in front of it. The ERP has roles and permissions; underneath, SQL Server relies on one “sa” login whose password is known to the previous IT person, the current contractor and the partner who installed the system five years back.

sa
shared login we switch off
1433
port that must stay off the internet
TDE
encrypted database files
Backups
encrypted and immutable

Included in this service

Three things matter: who is able to connect, what each connection may do, and whether it leaves a record. We handle SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL and MariaDB on premises, on VPS and in Azure.

Talk the scope through with an engineer

Logins

Personal logins for DBAs and a separate, restricted login for every application. The “sa” or “root” account is disabled or its password locked in a vault.

Network isolation

Staff computers lose direct database access, and nothing on the internet should reach it at all. Applications talk to the database, people talk to applications.

Read auditing

Sign-ins, privilege changes and, most importantly, bulk reads are recorded. Nobody should be able to dump the full customer table unnoticed.

Encryption

Transparent data encryption at rest, encrypted client connections and encryption applied to each backup file.

Test environments

Developers and testers work on pseudonymised copies. Building a new report does not call for real names, addresses or PESEL numbers.

Engine updates

A regular routine for installing security patches to the database engine, tried on a test instance before production.

How we work together

Production changes happen in a maintenance window agreed with you and, where relevant, with the application vendor.

01

Assessment

Mapping every connection by source and privilege level. Forgotten logins often surface, a former implementation consultant's among them.

02

Access clean-up

Superfluous network paths closed, an individual login for each administrator and shared passwords retired.

03

Auditing and encryption

Event capture enabled; live data and backup archives encrypted.

04

Proof

We confirm that a bulk read gets logged and that a restore from an encrypted backup genuinely works.

A backup is also a database, only less carefully watched. .bak files and mysqldump exports frequently sit unencrypted on a share half the office can open. Whoever holds the copy holds the data, however well the server is defended.

Questions and answers

First we try reproducing it on pseudonymised data, which is often enough. If that fails, production access is time-limited, read-only and logged, and it is withdrawn when the task is done.

That depends on the version and edition. In recent versions TDE can be available in cheaper editions too, so we check your licence first. On older releases we look at alternatives such as disk and backup encryption, or plan an upgrade.

We find out what the vendor really needs it for. Usually a narrower login will do, or the full one can be enabled only for the length of an upgrade, with the password changed after every session.

Regularly, at the pace set in your backup plan, and after any significant change, such as a system upgrade. A real test means restoring into a separate environment and running the application against it, not just confirming the backup file exists.

See who holds the keys to your data

Tell us which database engines your systems use and where they run. We will suggest the scope of a review.

Hours
Mon-Fri 8:00-18:00 CET, reply within one working day
Meetings
Online via Teams or Google Meet

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