Learning Apache Cassandra - Second Edition

Authorization as a hedge against mistakes

We generally think of authentication and authorization as a mechanism to prevent intentional access to our data by nefarious actors. However, authorization can also be a powerful insurance policy against unintentional mistakes by well-intentioned people. In the preceding example, the data analytics team did not intend to do any harm, but without authorization in place, that pesky cat would have unwittingly caused data loss.

While the odds of a feline posterior producing a perfectly-formed CQL query are quite long, mistakes do happen. Using authorization to give each user the minimum level of access they strictly need, we can reduce the chance of a mistake turning into an emergency.

Of course, authentication ...