Chapter 10: Database Security

Overview

This chapter focuses on security issues for Microsoft Access database files (.mdb), while the next chapter considers special techniques for securing SQL Server databases via Access projects (.adp files). Material in the last section of this chapter also highlights security issues for both .mdb and .adp files.

Database security has several important facets. One is to authenticate users before they gain access to a database. The user authentication process asks: Is this user who he or she claims to be? Another database security consideration pertains to permissions, which ascertain whether an authenticated user can perform certain tasks . For example, you can use database permissions to define who can view or modify rows in a table containing sensitive data, such as employee salaries. Developers with proprietary technologies often care about securing applications so that clients can use their technologies, but cannot view the code. Machine security is yet another consideration. In these days of rampant computer crimes, it is important that database solutions do not expose a machine to malicious acts by others, such as the potential for erasing or gathering information from files on a hard drive.

This chapter explores database security from three perspectives. First, it presents a miscellany of security techniques other than user-level security. While user-level security provides the most advanced form of security for .mdb files, these other techniques are generally easier to understand and implement. In many situations, these other techniques provide sufficient security for an application. Next, the chapter reviews user-level security in three distinct sections. The first section presents an overview of user-level security, steps for setting it up manually, and demonstrations of how it operates. The second section covers ADOX techniques for programmatically administering user-level security. The third section highlights Jet SQL techniques for programmatically managing user-level security. The chapter closes with a review of the Jet SandBox mode and macro security features. These features manage threats from potentially unsafe VBA and Access functions in Access 2003 applications.