Database Reliability Engineering

Chapter 9. Security

The function of security has always been a significant part of the database administrator’s job. Just as with recovery, the security of the organization’s most critical asset is paramount. Security incidents and attempts are occurring with greater and greater frequency. You need only read the news to learn about high-profile cases of hundreds of thousands (even millions) of user profiles, credit cards, and emails being stolen and resold regularly.

In the siloed world, the database administrator (DBA) would focus on his database security controls only, hardening in isolation and recognizing that security was the job of someone else. As the stewards of the organization’s data, however, the database reliability engineer (DBRE) must take a more holistic approach to the job.

We’ve already spoken about continuous deployment (CD) pipelines, cloud environments, and infrastructure as code in earlier chapters of this book. Each of these areas represents new attack vectors for potential thieves and vandals to get at your data. In this chapter, we craft a paradigm for database security for the DBRE to match today’s organizations and infrastructures. We will then approach the craft, discussing the potential attack vectors, a methodology and strategy for mitigation, and a holistic model that the DBRE can champion.

The Purpose of Security

It goes without saying that security is a crucial role equal to that of data recovery, as discussed in Chapter 7. Depending on the data, ...