Identity Crisis

One of the challenges to implementing effective security involves securing the identities. If security relies on proper identification, then it is natural to conclude that this linchpin in the security process is a high-risk area. Compromise the identity process, and you have compromised the security integrity of the application, the database, or both.

Spoofing

One particularly successful way to defeat good security is to play along with the security. Instead of trying to overcome the access controls and bypass the auditing, one can merely pretend to be someone else. Masquerading as another user, or spoofing, is the digital equivalent of identity theft that is discussed in the next section. This “someone else” can either be a privileged user or just another user. In both cases, spoofing can lead to disastrous results.

With spoofing, the security of the system can become an ally for the attacker. It may even help protect the information being stolen, manipulated, or copied by the spoofing hacker from other hackers! For example, it may not be difficult to copy or steal a digital certificate that is not properly secured. Digital certificates, which can act as digital identities, are small (roughly 10KB) and can be easily stored on many devices such as floppy disks, USB pen drives, and so on. If the certificate is stolen, it can then be used to falsely identify and authenticate a user. The security architecture of the network can include firewalls, network encryption, and intrusion detection systems, none of which can detect the spoofing actions being conducted.

This generally only happens if the certificate is not secured by some other factor such as a strong password or PIN. Certificate revocation, which exists in practically all applications that support digital certificates, resolves the illicit use of digital certificates but only when the user or administrator becomes aware that the theft has occurred.

There are countless ways to masquerade as someone else, but my main point is that user identity is critical to the security process. Ensuring the identity is secure by proper authentication, implementation, and monitoring is critical to ensuring effective overall security.

Identity Theft

Identity theft is a growing problem plaguing today’s world. This term simply describes the misuse and misrepresentation of information associated with one individual for the benefit of another. This unfortunate circumstance has escalated in recent years for numerous reasons. Your job is to ensure that you are not adding to the problem.

Protecting user identities can be just as important as protecting the data the identities get access to. Knowing as little as a person’s social security number and their date of birth, someone may be able to steal an identity to open a new bank account, apply for loans, buy expensive toys, or do countless other illegal activities under the guise of being someone else.

Why all this talk about identity theft in this book? Because a lot of the information that can be used to create false identities is siphoned from databases and poorly designed applications. The improper choice of an identifier could be a catalyst for identity theft.

Let’s look at a possible table structure to see what risks exist.

CREATE TABLE customers  (last_name VARCHAR2(50), first_name VARCHAR2(50), ssn VARCHAR2(11), date_of_birth DATE);

The data in this table is clearly sensitive. Protecting access to the data in this table is an obvious security requirement. There is also a not-so-obvious security risk.

It wouldn’t be unusual for the application designer to use the SSN as the user’s identifier. This is very risky and considered to be a very bad decision. The reason is that user identifiers are sometimes required by application developers for testing or debugging, the DBAs for verifying database access, as well as the intended application users/end users that interact with the application on a daily basis.

As such, there is a significant risk that the SSN and the user’s name or date of birth would be handled inappropriately—written on paper and left on someone’s desk, or e-mailed in an insecure manner. This could lead to the inadvertent disclosure of this sensitive information. It is this type of practice that can lead to identity theft. You should carefully evaluate the identifiers you use to ensure that sensitive and privacy-related information is not being used to represent the user’s identity.