Database infrastructure serves as the lifeblood of modern digital businesses – from ecommerce storefronts to banking systems and proprietary applications. As organizations become more data-driven, billions of customer records, transactions and proprietary data end up stored in relational as well non-relational database technologies.
However, recent years have witnessed an exponential rise in cyber attacks directly targeting such database servers to steal, encrypt or destroy sensitive information. According to research, 97% of companies faced database breaches or access attacks in 2022 – with 66% reporting more than 100 attack incidents over the year. The impact of such database breaches extends far beyond immediate data losses due to long-term reputational damage and investor trust erosion.
So how do you ensure resilient security for precious database systems enabling key business functionalities? This comprehensive guide prepares you to tackle this challenge through actionable insights on:
- Latest database vulnerability and cybercrime trends
- Step-by-step guidelines for security best practices
- Real-world case studies to learn from past database breaches
- Evaluating database security & monitoring tools to fit your stack
By the end, you will understand critical database threat models and have a plan to implement robust defenses protecting your essential data stores. Let us get started.
Database Threats Landscape in 2023
Before exploring solution elements, we need to understand how exactly databases are getting compromised today despite existing security investments. Here are key threat categories:
SQL Injection Attacks Still Going Strong
SQL injection has persisted as the most widespread database attack technique for over a decade. By 2023, it is seen in nearly 75% of all database breach incidents per industry reports.
In SQL injection, attackers inject malicious SQL code into input fields of web applications to trick the backend database. Based on 2021 data, it takes an average of just 5 hours for internet-facing sites to get hit with SQL injection attempts after going live. Depending on payload, injected queries give access to extract, delete, encrypt or modify confidential records.
With the scale of modern internet connectivity, attackers have an endless array of web applications to target through automated SQL injection tools. And they just need one vulnerable system as their initial entry point.
Insider Threats Rising Sharply
Insider attacks have increased by a whopping 47% since 2020. These include breaches by malicious actors as well exfiltration of data by employees – both intentional and unintentional.
Such insider threats are especially hard to tackle for database security teams. With their elevated access privileges, database administrators (DBAs) themselves pose a risk – whether via intentional misuse or operational mistakes failing to maintain appropriate controls.
Compromise of admin credentials also unlocks the full treasure trove of databases for malicious actors. Brute force attacks that guess password credentials have seen resurgence as a preferred attack vector. Weak administrators passwords set up years ago still persist in many legacy databases – allowing attackers easy wins.
Critical Database Breaches and Lessons Learned
Let us look at two anonymized examples of enterprise-scale database breaches. Both resulted in losses upwards of $50 million each.
Breach 1: Misconfigured Database Access Exposes Records
The company stored customers‘ personal information and financial transaction data in a cloud database service. An internal infrastructure audit found the database accessible over the public internet without any authentication controls to restrict access.
Anyone who identified the IP address could directly connect and view millions of sensitive customer records. Evidence suggested multiple malicious actors had accessed the records – perhaps selling them later to cybercrime groups.
Key Lessons
- Add multi-factor authentication before deploying databases on cloud platforms
- Disable public access to database instances and enable authorized IP restrictions
- Implement network segmentation via VPC controls for restricting database reachability
Breach 2: Supply Chain Attack Backdoors Company Servers
The manufacturer relied on an IoT management platform to connect to sensors and controllers on production lines. This IoT platform got compromised in a supply chain cyber attack through their upstream vendor‘s codebase being injected with malware.
With their backdoor access, attackers moved laterally through corporate systems to reach production databases. They extracted and encrypted sensitive design documents and manufacturing process data to extort millions from the company.
Key Lessons
- Limit lateral movement opportunities between breached systems via network segmentation
- Actively monitor traffic between operational systems and databases
- Employ data protection measures like encryption even within corporate boundaries
Both examples showcase the scale of damage from database security incidents – leading to lasting disruption, legal implications and trust erosion.
Adopting Database Security Best Practices
While external threats continue evolving, you can make database infrastructure resilient by adopting security best practices tailored to your technology stack and use cases:
Secure Database Access Controls
The principle of least-privilege is key for minimizing attack surfaces from permission misuse:
- Authenticate all database connections via strong passwords and multi-factor
- Provide individual user accounts instead of shared ones
- Revoke default admin privileges and inactive user accounts
- Carefully assign object and environment access minimizing permissions
Additionally, establish processes for access management like:
- Workflow approvals before granting privilege changes and new users
- Periodic entitlement reviews to identify and remove unneeded permissions
- Separation of duties across security administration and system users
Hardening Database Configurations
Proactively secure database instances beyond just access controls:
- Disable unused components that increase attack surface e.g. file transfers, XML parsing
- Restrict remote access to only client systems needing database connectivity
- Apply latest security patches and configure auto-updates where feasible
- Enable logging, monitoring and auditing functions offered natively by databases
Encrypting Sensitive Database Data
Since breached databases can rarely be recovered, encrypting data minimizes exploitive misuse:
- Transparent data encryption for securing databases files during storage
- Encryption of columns holding sensitive information like financial data
- Masking schemes to transform sensitive data like credit cards into surrogate values
- Protect backups stored on disks via backup or filesystem encryption
Detecting Threats via Database Activity Monitoring
Continuously inspect database traffic for exploits like SQLi or misuse:
- Capture and analyze SQL queries in real-time against threat intelligence
- Detect unauthorized, abnormal queries or access attempts
- Create user behavior profiles and monitor changes
- Get alerted proactively on policy violations
Specialized database monitoring solutions integrate with data stores like Oracle, DynamoDB, CosmosDB and offer turnkey capabilities in this area.
Adopting Database Containerization
Container platforms like Docker restrict resources per database instance by sandboxing processes into ring-fenced environments:
This limits damage from exploits while easing scalability demands via phased resource allocation. Leading cloud platforms now offer managed container databases easing adoption.
Evaluating Database Security Solutions
While in-house measures bolster defenses, dedicated tools specially designed for securing databases fill critical gaps:
Database Vulnerability Assessment
- Scuba provides over 2300 checks assessing security misconfigurations for Oracle, MSSQL, MySQL
- AppDetectivePRO scans database infrastructure as code (IaC) for hundreds of vulnerabilities
Database Activity Monitoring
- DbWatch offers comprehensive SQL traffic analytics detecting threats for hybrid or cloud databases
- DbStudio monitors MySQL server activity sending alerts for security use cases
Database Encryption
- DbDefence implements efficient at-rest and network encryption to protect Microsoft SQL Server data
- AppDetectivePro scans existing encryption practices across major database types
Privileged Access Management
- DbStudio‘s user rights management visualizes granular MySQL permissions facilitating audits
Evaluate capabilities as per your specific database types, deployment models and risk exposure levels before purchase.
Building In-House Database Security Expertise
With growing data perimeter complexity, relying solely on generalized security teams often leaves gaps in context-aware protection of business-critical databases.
Here are tips on nurturing specialized in-house expertise:
Formalize Database Security Roles
Clearly designate responsibility for database security – either within DBA or security teams – based on your resourcing and capability mix.
Invest in Training
Sponsor certifications like CISSP, CISA and role-based training to build a database security talent pool.
Incentivize Initiatives
Recognize those driving security-centric database infrastructure hardening or threat detection via bonuses and promotion prospects.
Promote Collaboration
Facilitate coordination between database, security and application custodians to learn from past incidents and control gaps.
Preparing Database Breach Incident Response Plans
Despite best efforts, some threats inevitably lead to security incidents. Minimize their impact via structured emergency plans:
- Establish roles and communicate responsibilities across DBA, security and executive leadership
- Test failover procedures periodicially to keep them battle-ready
- Maintain contacts of external cybersecurity incident response partners if needed
- Identify essential data recovery sequences balancing integrity restoration with uptime
- Evaluate insurance options via focused policies protecting against cyber incidents
With increasing cyber threats, the complexity of securing critical data stores can seem overwhelming initially. Stay resilient through a combination of pragmatic security best practices, dedicated tools and nurtured expertise. Work collectively across your technology surface to share learnings and build robust, layered database defenses together.
