Building Internet Firewalls, 2nd Edition

Chapter 23. Databases and Games

This chapter discusses two categories of protocols that didn’t fit in other chapters—the protocols used to talk to databases and the protocols used to play games remotely.

Databases

At most sites, much of the site’s most security-critical information is stored in databases. At companies, they store inventory and ordering data; at universities, they store student information, including grades; at research institutes, they store personnel information and (usually on different machines) research data. Originally, these databases were protected mostly by restricting access to them, but that’s no longer practical. People have become accustomed to mobile, distributed computing, where they can make instant updates to their own information, and that requires giving them the ability to reach databases. In addition, databases are being used for more and more purposes, as a way of storing and sharing information.

This means that network access to databases is now critical, particularly for electronic commerce applications where database servers and web servers need to exchange data. We have discussed issues about locating database servers and web servers in Chapter 15. Here, we will discuss the protocols used to provide network access and their security implications.

Locating Database Servers

Most database protocols are deeply insecure and difficult to pass through a firewall. Nonetheless, you are likely to want to let an externally available web server talk to ...