Access Control, User Accounts, and Database Audits

Whenever a person or a group of persons needs to access a database system, the individual or group must first apply for a user account. The DBA will then create a new account number and password for the user if there is a legitimate need to access the database. The user must log in to the DBMS by entering the account number and password whenever database access is needed. The DBMS checks that the account number and password are valid; if they are, the user is permitted to use the DBMS and to access the database. Application programs can also be considered users and are required to log in to the database (see Chapter 13).

It is straightforward to keep track of database users and their accounts and passwords by creating an encrypted table or file with two fields: AccountNumber and Password. This table can easily be maintained by the DBMS. Whenever a new account is created, a new record is inserted into the table. When an account is cancelled, the corresponding record must be deleted from the table.

The database system must also keep track of all operations on the database that are applied by a certain user throughout each login session, which consists of the sequence of database interactions that a user performs from the time of logging in to the time of logging off. When a user logs in, the DBMS can record the user’s account number and associate it with the computer or device from which the user logged in. All operations applied from that computer or device are attributed to the user’s account until the user logs off. It is particularly important to keep track of update operations that are applied to the database so that, if the database is tampered with, the DBA can determine which user did the tampering.

To keep a record of all updates applied to the database and of particular users who applied each update, we can modify the system log. Recall from Chapters 21 and 23 that the system log includes an entry for each operation applied to the database that may be required for recovery from a transaction failure or system crash. We can expand the log entries so that they also include the account number of the user and the online computer or device ID that applied each operation recorded in the log. If any tampering with the database is suspected, a database audit is performed, which consists of reviewing the log to examine all accesses and operations applied to the database during a certain time period. When an illegal or unauthorized operation is found, the DBA can determine the account number used to perform the operation. Database audits are particularly important for sensitive databases that are updated by many transactions and users, such as a banking database that is updated by many bank tellers. A database log that is used mainly for security purposes is sometimes called an audit trail.

Frequently Asked Questions