Why we should follow security measures in SQL Server?
Data is crucial in our digital age, serving as the foundation for decision-making in various sectors such as business and healthcare. It provides insights into customer behavior, market trends, and scientific phenomena, driving progress in areas like product development and autonomous vehicles. Innovations like AI and personalized medicine depend on large data sets. Financial institutions use data for credit risk assessment, and cybersecurity experts use it to identify threats. Data also enables personalized experiences.
Furthermore, data is essential for scientific discoveries, with researchers in fields like astronomy, genetics, and climate science relying on data collection, analysis, and sharing. Data is integral to technological advancement, risk assessment, personalization, scientific research, and historical preservation. All data is stored in databases. As the data grow day by day, it has become challenging to protect databases from unauthorized access or data theft. It is the DBA’s responsibility to follow security measures to protect data. Here we are discussing some of the best security practices and features available in SQLServer.
- Make sure to safeguard the physical security of each SQL Server, preventing any unauthorized users from gaining physical access to your servers.
- Ensure that you install only the necessary network libraries and network protocols on your SQL Server instances. This practice helps maintain a streamlined and secure configuration for your servers.
- Limit the count of sysadmins with access to the SQL Server. This practice enhances security by reducing the potential attack surface.
- As a database administrator (DBA), it is advisable to log in with sysadmin privileges only when necessary. Additionally, create separate accounts for DBAs to access the SQL Server when sysadmin privileges are not required.
- To enhance security, assign a highly complex password to the SA (System Administrator) account and refrain from using it directly to log onto SQLServer. Instead, opt for a Windows Authentication account when accessing database with sysadmin privileges.
- Provide users with the minimum necessary permissions required for their tasks.
- Use stored procedures or views to allow users to access data instead of letting them directly access tables.
- Use strong passwords for all SQL Server login accounts, including Alphanumeric and special characters.
- Delete user login IDs who no longer need access to database.
- Disable the guest user account from each user database by using REVOKE CONNECT FROM GUEST.
- Never grant permission to the xp_cmdshell to non-sysadmins.
- Remove sample databases from all production instances.
- Use Active Directory Groups, user defined Roles or SQL Server Roles to manage groups of users that need similar permissions.
- Avoid creating network shares on any SQL Server.
- Configure login auditing so you can see who has succeeded, and failed, to login.
- Don’t use the SA account, or login IDs who are members of the sysadmin group, as accounts used to access SQL Server from applications.
- Ensure that your SQLServers are protected by a firewall and are not exposed directly to the Internet.
- Only give SQL Server service accounts the minimum rights and permissions needed to run the service. In most cases, local administrator rights are not required, and domain administrator rights are never needed.
- When using distributed queries, it is advisable to use linked servers instead of remote servers. Remote servers only exist for backward compatibility.
- Do not browse the web from a production SQL Server instance.
- Instead of installing virus/antispyware protection on a SQL Server, perform scans from a remote server during a part of the day when user activity is less.
- Add operating system and SQL Server service packs and hot fixes soon after they are released and tested, as they often include security enhancements.
- In a high-security environment, consider implementing Transparent Data Encryption or Dynamic Data Masking to protect confidential data.
- Protect your SQL servers using the Defender for SQL plan. Defender for SQL plan requires that SQL Server Extension for Azure is enabled and includes functionalities for discovering and mitigating potential database vulnerabilities and detecting anomalous activities that could indicate a threat to your databases.
- Use Microsoft Entra authentication with Microsoft Entra ID (formerly known as Azure Active Directory) to connect to SQL Server. Starting with SQL Server 2022 (16.x) Cumulative Update 6.
- Implement Always encrypted and row-level security to protect data.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we discussed about some of the best security practices available in SQL Server. We can prevent any unauthorized access or any data theft using these practices.