Database Security and Encryption: A Survey Study

In the world of big data, where companies rely on huge amounts of data about their user base to make design decisions, we find that there are many adversaries who seek to corrupt or steal this sensitive information. As such companies have developed methods to protect their databases from unauthorized access.

To account for cyber security of databases, we can implement a hierarchy of employee permissions. This is because many breaches are caused by internal mistakes in setting up or accessing the database. This can cause leaks of sensitive information like access keys. By having a hierarchy, where the people at the top are very knowledgeable about database security, we can allow lower level employees to access the data, while maintaining security. We can also develop specific responses to certain types of data attacks. A popular one might attempt to remove our access to the sensitive data. To combat this, we can create regular backups of our sensitive information. This way, in the event it was deleted, we can retain most of the information we lost without having to seek out the attacker. To protect against outsiders reading our information, we create systems of multilayer encryption, so that even if an outsider somehow gains access to our tables, they still need a way to decrypt the data. This is important in cases such as storing payment information about a company’s consumers. We compare different methods of combating specific attacks to see which can help us fend off attacks in specific situations.