Chapter 23

Database Security
and
Authorization

Copyright © 2004 Pearson Education, Inc.

 Chapter Outline
1 Database Security and Authorization
1.1 Introduction to Database Security Issues
1.2 Types of Security
1.3 Database Security and DBA
1.4 Access Protection, User Accounts, and Database Audits

2 Discretionary Access Control Based on Granting Revoking

Privileges
2.1 Types of Discretionary Privileges
2.2 Specifying Privileges Using Views
2.3 Revoking Privileges
2.4 Propagation of Privileges Using the GRANT OPTION
2.5 Specifying Limits on Propagation of Privileges

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-3

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Chapter Outline(contd.)
3 Mandatory Access Control and Role-Based Access
Control for Multilevel Security
3.1 Comparing Discretionary Access Control
and Mandatory Access Control
3.2 Role-Based Access Control
3.3 Access Control Policies for E-Commerce and
the Web

4 Introduction to Statistical Database Security

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-4

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Chapter Outline(contd.)
5 Introduction to Flow Control
5.1 Covert Channels
6 Encryption and Public Key Infrastructures
6.1The Data and Advanced Encryption Standards
6.2 Public Key Encryption
6.3 Digital Signatures

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-5

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 1 Introduction to Database Security
Issues

Types of Security
– Legal and ethical issues
– Policy issues
– System-related issues
– The need to identify multiple security levels

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-6

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Introduction to Database Security
Issues (2)

Threats to databases
- Loss of integrity
- Loss of availability
- Loss of confidentiality

To protect databases against these types of threats

four kinds of countermeasures can be
implemented : access control, inference control,
flow control, and encryption.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-7

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Introduction to Database
Security Issues (3)

A DBMS typically includes a database security and

authorization subsystem that is responsible for
ensuring the security portions of a database
against unauthorized access.

Two types of database security mechanisms:

 Discretionary security mechanisms
 Mandatory security mechanisms

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-8

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Introduction to Database
Security Issues (4)

The security mechanism of a DBMS must

include provisions for restricting access to
the database as a whole; this function is
called access control and is handled by
creating user accounts and passwords to
control login process by the DBMS.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-9

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Introduction to Database
Security Issues (5)
The security problem associated with databases is
that of controlling the access to a statistical
database, which is used to provide statistical
information or summaries of values based on
various criteria.

The countermeasures to statistical database

security problem is called inference control
measures.
Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-10
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Introduction to Database
Security Issues (6)
Another security is that of flow control, which
prevents information from flowing in such a way
that it reaches unauthorized users.

Channels that are pathways for information to flow

implicitly in ways that violate the security policy
of an organization are called covert channels.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-11

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Introduction to Database
Security Issues (7)
A final security issue is data encryption, which is
used to protect sensitive data (such as credit card
numbers) that is being transmitted via some type
communication network.
The data is encoded using some coding algorithm.
An unauthorized user who access encoded data
will have difficulty deciphering it, but authorized
users are given decoding or decrypting algorithms
(or keys) to decipher data.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-12

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 1.2 Database Security and the DBA

The database administrator (DBA) is the central

authority for managing a database system. The
DBA’s responsibilities include granting privileges
to users who need to use the system and
classifying users and data in accordance with the
policy of the organization. The DBA has a DBA
account in the DBMS, sometimes called a system
or superuser account, which provides powerful
capabilities :

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-13

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 1.2 Database Security and the DBA

1. Account creation
2. Privilege granting
3. Privilege revocation
4. Security level assignment

The DBA is responsible for the overall security of

the database system.
Action 1 is access control, whereas 2 and 3 are
discretionary and 4 is used to control mandatory
authorization.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-14

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 1.3 Access Protection, User
Accounts, and Database Audits
Whenever a person or group of person s need to access a
database system, the individual or group must first apply
for a user account. The DBA will then create a new
account number and password for the user if there is a
legitimate need to access the database.

The user must log in to the DBMS by entering account

number and password whenever database access is needed.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-15

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 1.3 Access Protection, User
Accounts, and Database Audits(2)
The database system must also keep track of all operations on the database
that are applied by a certain user throughout each login session.

To keep a record of all updates applied to the database and of the particular
user who applied each update, we can modify system log, which
includes an entry for each operation applied to the database that may be
required for recovery from a transaction failure or system crash.
If any tampering with the database is suspected, a database audit is
performed, which consists of reviewing the log to examine all accesses
and operations applied to the database during a certain time period.
A database log that is used mainly for security purposes is sometimes
called an audit trail.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-16

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Discretionary Access
Control Based on Granting
and Revoking Privileges
The typical method of enforcing discretionary access
control in a database system is based on the granting and
revoking privileges.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-17

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.1Types of Discretionary Privileges

 The account level: At this level, the DBA specifies the

particular privileges that each account holds independently
of the relations in the database.
 The relation (or table level): At this level, the DBA can
control the privilege to access each individual relation or
view in the database.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-18

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.1Types of Discretionary Privileges(2)

The privileges at the account level apply to the capabilities

provided to the account itself and can include the
CREATE SCHEMA or CREATE TABLE privilege, to
create a schema or base relation; the CREATE VIEW
privilege; the ALTER privilege, to apply schema changes
such adding or removing attributes from relations; the
DROP privilege, to delete relations or views; the MODIFY
privilege, to insert, delete, or update tuples; and the
SELECT privilege, to retrieve information from the
database by using a SELECT query.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-19

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.1Types of Discretionary Privileges(3)

The second level of privileges applies to the relation level,

whether they are base relations or virtual (view) relations.

The granting and revoking of privileges generally follow an

authorization model for discretionary privileges known as
the access matrix model, where the rows of a matrix M
represents subjects (users, accounts, programs) and the
columns represent objects (relations, records, columns,
views, operations). Each position M(i,j) in the matrix
represents the types of privileges (read, write, update) that
subject i holds on object j.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-20

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.1Types of Discretionary Privileges(4)

To control the granting and revoking of relation privileges,

each relation R in a database is assigned and owner
account, which is typically the account that was used
when the relation was created in the first place. The owner
of a relation is given all privileges on that relation. In
SQL2, the DBA can assign and owner to a whole schema
by creating the schema and associating the appropriate
authorization identifier with that schema, using the
CREATE SCHEMA command. The owner account holder
can pass privileges on any of the owned relation to other
users by granting privileges to their accounts.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-21

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.1Types of Discretionary Privileges(5)

In SQL the following types of privileges can be granted on

each individual relation R:
 SELECT (retrieval or read) privilege on R: Gives the
account retrieval privilege. In SQL this gives the account
the privilege to use the SELECT statement to retrieve
tuples from R.
 MODIFY privileges on R: This gives the account the
capability to modify tuples of R. In SQL this privilege is
further divided into UPDATE, DELETE, and INSERT
privileges to apply the corresponding SQL command to R.
In addition, both the INSERT and UPDATE privileges can
specify that only certain attributes can be updated by the
account.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-22

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.1Types of Discretionary Privileges(6)

 REFERENCES privilege on R: This gives the account the

capability to reference relation R when specifying integrity
constraints. The privilege can also be restricted to specific
attributes of R.

Notice that to create a view, the account must have SELECT

privilege on all relations involved in the view definition.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-23

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.2 Specifying Privileges Using Views

The mechanism of views is an important discretionary

authorization mechanism in its own right.

For example, if the owner A of a relation R wants another

account B to be able to retrieve only some fields of R, then
A can create a view V of R that includes only those
attributes and then grant SELECT on V to B. The same
applies to limiting B to retrieving only certain tuples of R;
a view V’ can be created by defining the view by means of
a query that selects only those tuples from R that A wants
to allow B to access.
Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-24
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.3 Revoking Privileges

In some cases it is desirable to grant a privilege to a user

temporarily.

For example, the owner of a relation may want to grant the

SELECT privilege to a user for a specific task and then
revoke that privilege once the task is completed. Hence, a
mechanism for revoking privileges is needed. In SQL, a
REVOKE command is included for the purpose of
canceling privileges.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-25

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.4 Propagation of Privileges using the
GRANT OPTION
Whenever the owner A of a relation R grants a privilege on R
to another account B, privilege can be given to B with or
without the GRANT OPTION. If the GRANT OPTION is
given, this means that B can also grant that privilege on R
to other accounts. Suppose that B is given the GRANT
OPTION by A and that B then grants the privilege on R to
a third account C, also with GRANT OPTION. In this
way, privileges on R can propagate to other accounts
without the knowledge of the owner of R. If the owner
account A now revokes the privilege granted to B, all the
privileges that B propagated based on that privilege should
automatically be revoked by the system.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-26

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.5 An Example

Suppose that the DBA creates four accounts --A1, A2, A3, and A4-- and
wants only A1 to be able to create base relations; then the DBA must
issue the following GRANT command in SQL:

GRANT CREATETAB TO A1;

In SQL2 the same effect can be accomplished by having the DBA issue a
CREATE SCHEMA command as follows:

CREATE SCHAMA EXAMPLE AUTHORIZATION A1;

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-27

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.5 An Example(2)

User account A1 can create tables under the schema called EXAMPLE.

Suppose that A1 creates the two base relations EMPLOYEE and

DEPARTMENT; A1 is then owner of these two relations and hence
all the relation privileges on each of them.

Suppose that A1 wants to grant A2 the privilege to insert and delete tuples
in both of these relations, but A1 does not want A2 to be able to
propagate these privileges to additional accounts:

GRANT INSERT, DELETE ON EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT TO A2;

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-28

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.5 An Example(3)

EMPLOYEE
NAME SSN BDATE ADDRESS SEX SALARY DNO

DEPARTMENT
DNUMBER DNAME MGRSSN

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-29

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.5 An Example(4)

Suppose that A1 wants to allow A3 to retrieve information from either of

the two tables and also to be able to propagate the SELECT privilege
to other accounts.
A1 can issue the command:

GRANT SELECT ON EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT TO A3 WITH

GRANT OPTION;

A3 can grant the SELECT privilege on the EMPLOYEE relation to A4 by

issuing:
GRANT SELECT ON EMPLOYEE TO A4;
(Notice that A4 can not propagate the SELECT privilege because
GRANT OPTION was not given to A4.)

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-30

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.5 An Example(5)

Suppose that A1 decides to revoke the SELECT privilege on

the EMPLOYEE relation from A3; A1 can issue:
REVOKE SELECT ON EMPLOYEE FROM A3;
(The DBMS must now automatically revoke the SELECT
privilege on EMPLOYEE from A4, too, because A3
granted that privilege to A4 and A3 does not have the
privilege any more.)

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-31

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.5 An Example(6)

Suppose that A1 wants to give back to A3 a limited capability to SELECT from

the EMPLOYEE relation and wants to allow A3 to be able to propagate the
privilege. The limitation is to retrieve only the NAME, BDATE, and
ADDRESS attributes and only for the tuples with DNO=5.
A1 then create the view:
CREATE VIEW A3EMPLOYEE AS
SELECT NAME, BDATE, ADDRESS
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE DNO = 5;
After the view is created, A1 can grant SELECT on the view
A3EMPLOYEE to A3 as follows:
GRANT SELECT ON A3EMPLOYEE TO A3 WITH GRANT OPTION;

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-32

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.5 An Example(7)

Finally, suppose that A1 wants to allow A4 to update only the

SALARY attribute of EMPLOYEE;
A1 can issue:

GRANT UPDATE ON EMPLOYEE (SALARY) TO A4;

(The UPDATE or INSERT privilege can specify particular

attributes that may be updated or inserted in a relation.
Other privileges (SELECT, DELETE) are not attribute
specific.)

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-33

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 2.6 Specifying Limits on
Propagation of Privileges
Techniques to limit the propagation of privileges have been
developed, although they have not yet been implemented
in most DBMSs and are not a part of SQL.

Limiting horizontal propagation to an integer number i

means that an account B given the GRANT OPTION can
grant the privilege to at most i other accounts.

Vertical propagation is more complicated; it limits the depth

of the granting of privileges.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-34

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3 Mandatory Access Control and Role-
Based Access Control for Multilevel
Security
The discretionary access control techniques of granting and
revoking privileges on relations has traditionally been the
main security mechanism for relational database systems.
This is an all-or-nothing method: A user either has or does
not have a certain privilege.
In many applications, and additional security policy is needed
that classifies data and users based on security classes.
This approach as mandatory access control, would
typically be combined with the discretionary access control
mechanisms.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-35

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3 Mandatory Access Control and Role-
Based Access Control for Multilevel
Security(2)
Typical security classes are top secret (TS), secret (S),
confidential (C), and unclassified (U), where TS is the
highest level and U the lowest: TS ≥ S ≥ C ≥ U

The commonly used model for multilevel security, known as

the Bell-LaPadula model, classifies each subject (user,
account, program) and object (relation, tuple, column,
view, operation) into one of the security classifications, T,
S, C, or U: clearance (classification) of a subject S as
class(S) and to the classification of an object O as
class(O).

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-36

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3 Mandatory Access Control and Role-
Based Access Control for Multilevel
Security(3)
Two restrictions are enforced on data access based on the
subject/object classifications:
1. A subject S is not allowed read access to an object O
unless class(S) ≥ class(O). This is known as the simple
security property.
2. A subject S is not allowed to write an object O unless
class(S) ≤ class(O). This known as the star property (or
* property).

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-37

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3 Mandatory Access Control and Role-
Based Access Control for Multilevel
Security(4)
To incorporate multilevel security notions into the relational
database model, it is common to consider attribute
values and tuples as data objects. Hence, each attribute
A is associated with a classification attribute C in the
schema, and each attribute value in a tuple is associated
with a corresponding security classification. In addition,
in some models, a tuple classification attribute TC is
added to the relation attributes to provide a classification
for each tuple as a whole. Hence, a multilevel relation
schema R with n attributes would be represented as
R(A1,C1,A2,C2, …, An,Cn,TC)
where each Ci represents the classification attribute
associated with attribute Ai.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-38

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3 Mandatory Access Control and Role-
Based Access Control for Multilevel
Security(5)
The value of the TC attribute in each tuple t – which is the
highest of all attribute classification values within t –
provides a general classification for the tuple itself,
whereas each Ci provides a finer security classification
for each attribute value within the tuple.

The apparent key of a multilevel relation is the set of

attributes that would have formed the primary key in a
regular(single-level) relation.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-39

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3 Mandatory Access Control and Role-
Based Access Control for Multilevel
Security(6)
A multilevel relation will appear to contain different data to
subjects (users) with different clearance levels. In some cases,
it is possible to store a single tuple in the relation at a higher
classification level and produce the corresponding tuples at a
lower-level classification through a process known as
filtering.
In other cases, it is necessary to store two or more tuples at
different classification levels with the same value for the
apparent key. This leads to the concept of polyinstantiation
where several tuples can have the same apparent key value
but have different attribute values for users at different
classification levels.
Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-40
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3 Mandatory Access Control and Role-
Based Access Control for Multilevel
Security(7)
In general, the entity integrity rule for multilevel relations
states that all attributes that are members of the apparent
key must not be null and must have the same security
classification within each individual tuple.
In addition, all other attribute values in the tuple must have a
security classification greater than or equal to that of the
apparent key. This constraint ensures that a user can see
the key if the user is permitted to see any part of the
tuple at all.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-41

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3 Mandatory Access Control and Role-
Based Access Control for Multilevel
Security(8)
Other integrity rules, called null integrity and
interinstance integrity, informally ensure
that if a tuple value at some security level
can be filtered (derived) from a higher-
classified tuple, then it is sufficient to store
the higher-classified tuple in the multilevel
relation.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-42

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3.1 Comparing Discretionary Access
Control and Mandatory Access Control

 Discretionary Access Control (DAC) policies are

characterized by a high degree of flexibility, which
makes them suitable for a large variety of application
domains.
 The main drawback of DAC models is their
vulnerability to malicious attacks, such as Trojan horses
embedded in application programs.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-43

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3.1 Comparing Discretionary Access
Control and Mandatory Access
Control(2)
 By contrast, mandatory policies ensure a high degree of
protection in a way, they prevent any illegal flow of
information.
 Mandatory policies have the drawback of being too rigid
and they are only applicable in limited environments.
 In many practical situations, discretionary policies are
preferred because they offer a better trade-off between
security and applicability.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-44

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3.2 Role-Based Access Control

Role-based access control (RBAC) emerged rapidly in the

1990s as a proven technology for managing and
enforcing security in large-scale enterprisewide systems.
Its basic notion is that permissions are associated with
roles, and users are assigned to appropriate roles. Roles
can be created using the CREATE ROLE and
DESTROY ROLE commands. The GRANT and
REVOKE commands discussed under DAC can then be
used to assign and revoke privileges from roles.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-45

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3.2 Role-Based Access Control(2)

 RBAC appears to be a viable alternative to traditional

discretionary and mandatory access controls; it ensures
that only authorized users are given access to certain data
or resources.
 Many DBMSs have allowed the concept of roles, where
privileges can be assigned to roles.
 Role hierarchy in RBAC is a natural way of organizing
roles to reflect the organization’s lines of authority and
responsibility.

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Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3.2 Role-Based Access Control(3)

 Another important consideration in RBAC systems is the

possible temporal constraints that may exist on roles, such
as time and duration of role activations, and timed
triggering of a role by an activation of another role.
 Using an RBAC model is highly desirable goal for
addressing the key security requirements of Web-based
applications.
In contrast, discretionary access control (DAC) and
mandatory access control (MAC) models lack capabilities
needed to support the security requirements emerging
enterprises and Web-based applications.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-47

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3.3 Access Control Policies for
E-Commerce and the Web
 E-Commerce environments require elaborate policies that
go beyond traditional DBMSs.
– In an e-commerce environment the resources to be
protected are not only traditional data but also
knowledge and experience.
– The access control mechanism should be flexible
enough to support a wide spectrum of heterogeneous
protection objects.
 A related requirement is the support for content-based
access-control.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-48

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 3.3 Access Control Policies for
E-Commerce and the Web(2)
 Another requirement is related to the heterogeneity of
subjects, which requires access control policies based on
user characteristics and qualifications.
– A possible solution, to better take into account user profiles in the
formulation of access control policies, is to support the notion of
credentials. A credential is a set of properties concerning a user
that are relevant for security purposes (for example, age, position
within an organization).
– It is believed that the XML language can play a key role in access
control for e-commerce applications.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-49

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 4 Introduction to Statistical
Database Security
 Statistical databases are used mainly to produce statistics
on various populations.
 The database may contain confidential data on individuals,
which should be protected from user access.
 Users are permitted to retrieve statistical information on
the populations, such as averages, sums, counts,
maximums, minimums, and standard deviations.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-50

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 4 Introduction to Statistical
Database Security(2)
A population is a set of tuples of a relation (table) that satisfy
some selection condition.
 Statistical queries involve applying statistical functions to
a population of tuples.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-51

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 4 Introduction to Statistical
Database Security(3)
For example, we may want to retrieve the number of
individuals in a population or the average income in the
population. However, statistical users are not allowed to
retrieve individual data, such as the income of a specific
person. Statistical database security techniques must
prohibit the retrieval of individual data.
This can be achieved by prohibiting queries that retrieve
attribute values and by allowing only queries that involve
statistical aggregate functions such as COUNT, SUM,
MIN, MAX, AVERAGE, and STANDARD DEVIATION.
Such queries are sometimes called statistical queries.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-52

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 4 Introduction to Statistical
Database Security(4)
 It is DBMS’s responsibility to ensure confidentiality of
information about individuals, while still providing useful
statistical summaries of data about those individuals to
users.
 Provision of privacy protection of users in a statistical
database is paramount.
 In some cases it is possible to infer the values of
individual tuples from a sequence statistical queries. This
is particularly true when the conditions result in a
population consisting of a small number of tuples.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-53

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 5 Introduction to Flow Control
 Flow control regulates the distribution or flow of
information among accessible objects. A flow between
object X and object Y occurs when a program reads values
from X and writes values into Y.
 Flow controls check that information contained in some
objects does not flow explicitly or implicitly into less
protected objects.
 A flow policy specifies the channels along which
information is allowed to move. The simplest flow policy
specifies just two classes of information: confidential (C)
and nonconfidential (N), and allows all flows except those
from class C to class N.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-54

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 5.1 Covert Channels

A covert channel allows a transfer of information that violates

the security or the policy.

 A covert channel allows information to pass from a

higher classification level to a lower classification level
through improper means.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-55

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 5.1 Covert Channels(2)

 Covert channels can be classified into two broad

categories:
– storage channels do not require any temporal synchronization, in
that information is conveyed by accessing system information or
what is otherwise inaccessible to the user.
– in a timing channel the information is conveyed by the timing of
events or processes.
Some security experts believe that one way to avoid covert channels
is for programmers to not actually gain access to sensitive data that
a program is supposed to process after the program has been put
into operation.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-56

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 6 Encryption and Public Key
Infrastructures
 Encryption is a means of maintaining secure data in an
insecure environment.
 Encryption consists of applying an encryption algorithm
to data using some prespecified encryption key.
– the resulting data has to be decrypted using a decryption key to
recover the original data.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-57

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 6.1 The Data and Advanced
Encryption Standards
 The Data Encryption Standard (DES) is a system
developed by the U.S. government for use by the general
public. It has been widely accepted as a cryptographic
standard both in the United States and abroad.
 DES can provide end-to-end encryption on the channel
between the sender A and receiver B.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-58

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 6.1 The Data and Advanced
Encryption Standards(2)
 DES algorithm is a careful and complex combination of
two of the fundamental building blocks of encryption:
substitution and permutation (transposition).
– The algorithm derives its strength from repeated application of
these two techniques for a total of 16 cycles.
– Plaintext (the original form of the message) is encrypted as blocks
of 64 bits.
 After questioning the adequacy of DES, the National
Institute of Standards (NIST) introduced the Advanced
Encryption Standards (AES).
– This algorithm has a block size of 128 bits and thus takes longer
time to crack.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-59

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 6.2 Public Key Encryption

In 1976 Diffie and Hellman proposed a new kind of

cryptosystem, which they called public key encryption.

 Public key algorithms are based on mathematical functions

rather than operations on bit patterns.
– They also involve the use of two separate keys, in contrast to
conventional encryption, which uses only one key.
– The use of two keys can have profound consequences in the areas
of confidentiality, key distribution, and authentication.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-60

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 6.2 Public Key Encryption(2)

 The two keys used for public key encryption are referred
to as the public key and the private key.
– the private key is kept secret, but it is referred to as private key
rather than a secret key (the key used in conventional encryption)
to avoid confusion with conventional encryption.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-61

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 6.2 Public Key Encryption(3)

A public key encryption scheme, or infrastructure, has six

ingredients:
1. Plaintext : This is the data or readable message that is fed into the
algorithm as input.
2. Encryption algorithm : The encryption algorithm performs various
transformations on the plaintext.
3. and
4. Public and private keys : These are pair of keys that have been
selected so that if one is used for encryption, the other is used for
decryption. The exec transformations performed by the encryption
algorithm depend on the public or private key that is provided as
input.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-62

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 6.2 Public Key Encryption(4)

5. Ciphertext : This is the scrambled message produced as output. It

depends on the plaintext and the key. For a given message, two
different keys will produce two different ciphertexts.
6. Decryption algorithm : This algorithm accepts the ciphertext and
the matching key and produces the original plaintext.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-63

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 6.2 Public Key Encryption(5)

Public key is made for public and private key is known only
by owner.
A general-purpose public key cryptographic algorithm relies
on one key for encryption and a different but related one
for decryption. The essential steps are as follows:
1. Each user generates a pair of keys to be used for the encryption and
decryption of messages.
2. Each user places one of the two keys in a public register or other
accessible file. This is the public key. The companion key is kept
private.

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Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 6.2 Public Key Encryption(6)

3. If a sender wishes to send a private message to a receiver, the

sender encrypts the message using the receiver’s public key.
4. When the receiver receives the message, he or she decrypts it using
the receiver’s private key. No other recipient can decrypt the
message because only the receiver knows his or her private key.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-65

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 6.2 Public Key Encryption(7)

The RSA Public Key Encryption algorithm, one of the first

public key schemes was introduced in 1978 by Ron
Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Len Adleman at MIT and is
named after them as the RSA scheme.

 The RSA encryption algorithm incorporates results from number

theory, combined with the difficulty of determining the prime
factors of a target.
 The RSA algorithm also operates with modular arithmetic – mod n.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-66

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 6.2 Public Key Encryption(8)
 Two keys, d and e, are used for decryption and encryption.
– An important property is that d and e can be interchanged.
– n is chosen as a large integer that is a product of two large distinct prime
numbers, a and b.
– The encryption key e is a randomly chosen number between 1 and n that
is relatively prime to (a-1) x (b-1).
– The plaintext block P is encrypted as Pe mod n.
– Because the exponentiation is performed mod n, factoring Pe to uncover
the encrypted plaintext is difficult.
– However, the decryption key d is carefully chosen so that
(Pe)d mod n = P.
– The decryption key d can be computed from the condition that
d x e= 1 mod ((a-1)x(b-1)).
– Thus, the legitimate receiver who knows d simply computes
(Pe)d mod n = P and recovers P without having to factor Pe .

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-67

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 6.3 Digital Signatures

A digital signature is an example of using encryption

techniques to provide authentication services in e-
commerce applications.
 A digital signature is a means of associating a mark
unique to an individual with a body of text.
– The mark should be unforgettable, meaning that others should be
able to check that the signature does come from the originator.
 A digital signature consists of a string of symbols.
– Signature must be different for each use. This can be achieved by
making each digital signature a function of the message that it is
signing, together with a time stamp.
– Public key techniques are the means creating digital signatures.

Elmasri/Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition Chapter 23-68

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe