Summary

In this chapter, you looked at security from both the service and user perspectives. Each of these groups has different requirements for ensuring a secure SQL Server, but they both require that the minimum level of privileges be assigned to a particular user or role.

You should choose service accounts to run SQL Server that ensure the various subsystems of SQL Server run properly, but only grant them the minimum amount of privileges needed to run the software. This is because of their global access to the SQL Server software.

You should configure the overall SQL Server service with a minimum surface area exposed to attack and unnecessary services and features disabled.

Users should be added to SQL Server using groups and roles with the minimum permissions required to complete a particular job. You should also check the authentication scheme used for users to verify that it properly secures the data inside the server.

As with any security planning and maintenance, be sure to document the various settings and configurations for comparison purposes in the future to determine whether anything has changed.