Microsoft® SQL Server 2012 Unleashed

An Overview of Data Security

Security is important for every product and every business. By following some simple security best practices, you can avoid many security vulnerabilities. This section discusses some security recommendations that you should consider for your SQL Server implementations. Securing SQL Server can be viewed as a series of steps, involving four areas: the platform, authentication, objects (including data), and applications that access the system.

The platform for SQL Server includes the physical hardware and networking systems connecting clients to the database servers. The first step in securing your SQL Server environment is to provide sufficient physical security by limiting access to the physical server and hardware ...