A Common Flexible Framework for Modern and Legacy Relational Database Systems Enhanced for Security

Abstract

Security in modern applications are a critical part of enterprise security. Certain applications come with certain built in security mechanisms. The customizability of these applications tend to vary from application to application. Therefore relational database management systems has been one of layers which has been widely used to bridge the gap between the missing security functionalities. This was done by using built in security mechanism in the relational database management system. However the functionalities provided by the relational database management system tend to vary from version to version and from database management system to database management system as well. Therefore there is no uniform way in which security controls can be configured, maintained and migrated. Therefore there is a need for a common flexible security framework which can be used regardless of the underlying security functionalities provided by the database management system. This should act as an abstraction layer between the user (developer/administrator) and the fine details of how the security controls are implemented. It should be flexible enough so that the core security requirements can be migrated from one database to another without the need of redoing the work, and work even if the required security controls are not built-in to the database. This makes enforcing the security requirements a lot cheaper and easier to maintain. The objective of this document is to describe and introduce one such mechanism which caters this security requirement.