Chapter 6: Integrity and Security

Domain Constraints Referential Integrity Assertions Triggers Security

Authorization
Authorization in SQL

Database System Concepts

6.1

Domain Constraints
Integrity constraints guard against accidental damage to the

database, by ensuring that authorized changes to the database do not result in a loss of data consistency.
Domain constraints are the most elementary form of integrity

constraint.
They test values inserted in the database, and test queries to

ensure that the comparisons make sense.

New domains can be created from existing data types

E.g. create domain Dollars numeric(12, 2) create domain Pounds numeric(12,2)

We cannot assign or compare a value of type Dollars to a value of

type Pounds.
However, we can convert type as below (cast r.A as Pounds) (Should also multiply by the dollar-to-pound conversion-rate)
Database System Concepts 6.2

Referential Integrity
Ensures that a value that appears in one relation for a given set of

attributes also appears for a certain set of attributes in another relation.

Example: If Perryridge is a branch name appearing in one of the tuples in the account relation, then there exists a tuple in the branch relation for branch Perryridge.
Formal Definition

Let r1(R1) and r2(R2) be relations with primary keys K1 and K2 respectively. The subset of R2 is a foreign key referencing K1 in relation r1, if for every t2 in r2 there must be a tuple t1 in r1 such that t1[K1] = t2[]. Referential integrity constraint also called subset dependency since its can be written as (r2) K1 (r1)

Database System Concepts

6.3

Referential Integrity in SQL

Primary and candidate keys and foreign keys can be specified as part of

the SQL create table statement:

The primary key clause lists attributes that comprise the primary key.
The unique key clause lists attributes that comprise a candidate key. The foreign key clause lists the attributes that comprise the foreign key and the name of the relation referenced by the foreign key.
By default, a foreign key references the primary key attributes of the

referenced table
foreign key (account-number) references account

Short form for specifying a single column as foreign key

account-number char (10) references account

Reference columns in the referenced table can be explicitly specified

but must be declared as primary/candidate keys

foreign key (account-number) references account(account-number)

Database System Concepts

6.4

Referential Integrity in SQL Example

create table customer (customer-name char(20), customer-street char(30), customer-city char(30), primary key (customer-name)) create table branch (branch-name char(15), branch-city char(30), assets integer, primary key (branch-name))

Database System Concepts

6.5

Referential Integrity in SQL Example (Cont.)

create table account (account-number char(10), branch-name char(15), balance integer, primary key (account-number), foreign key (branch-name) references branch) create table depositor (customer-name char(20), account-number char(10), primary key (customer-name, account-number), foreign key (account-number) references account, foreign key (customer-name) references customer)

Database System Concepts

6.6

Assertions
An assertion is a predicate expressing a condition that we wish

the database always to satisfy.

An assertion in SQL takes the form

create assertion <assertion-name> check <predicate>

When an assertion is made, the system tests it for validity, and

tests it again on every update that may violate the assertion

This testing may introduce a significant amount of overhead; hence assertions should be used with great care.
Asserting

for all X, P(X) is achieved in a round-about fashion using not exists X such that not P(X)

Database System Concepts

6.7

Assertion Example
The sum of all loan amounts for each branch must be less than

the sum of all account balances at the branch.

create assertion sum-constraint check (not exists (select * from branch where (select sum(amount) from loan where loan.branch-name = branch.branch-name) >= (select sum(amount) from account where loan.branch-name = branch.branch-name)))

Database System Concepts

6.8

Assertion Example
Every loan has at least one borrower who maintains an account with

a minimum balance or $1000.00 create assertion balance-constraint check (not exists ( select * from loan where not exists ( select * from borrower, depositor, account where loan.loan-number = borrower.loan-number and borrower.customer-name = depositor.customer-name and depositor.account-number = account.account-number and account.balance >= 1000)))

Database System Concepts

6.9

Triggers
A trigger is a statement that is executed automatically by the

system as a side effect of a modification to the database.

To design a trigger mechanism, we must:

Specify the conditions under which the trigger is to be executed. Specify the actions to be taken when the trigger executes.
Triggers introduced to SQL standard in SQL:1999, but supported

even earlier using non-standard syntax by most databases.

Database System Concepts

6.10

Trigger Example
Suppose that instead of allowing negative account balances, the

bank deals with overdrafts by

setting the account balance to zero
creating a loan in the amount of the overdraft giving this loan a loan number identical to the account number of the overdrawn account
The condition for executing the trigger is an update to the

account relation that results in a negative balance value.

Database System Concepts

6.11

Trigger Example in SQL:1999

create trigger overdraft-trigger after update on account referencing new row as nrow for each row when nrow.balance < 0 begin atomic insert into borrower (select customer-name, account-number from depositor where nrow.account-number = depositor.account-number); insert into loan values (n.row.account-number, nrow.branch-name, nrow.balance); update account set balance = 0 where account.account-number = nrow.account-number end

Database System Concepts

6.12

Triggering Events and Actions in SQL

Triggering event can be insert, delete or update Triggers on update can be restricted to specific attributes

E.g. create trigger overdraft-trigger after update of balance on account

Values of attributes before and after an update can be referenced

referencing old row as : for deletes and updates referencing new row as : for inserts and updates
Triggers can be activated before an event, which can serve as extra

constraints. E.g. convert blanks to null. create trigger setnull-trigger before update on r referencing new row as nrow for each row when nrow.phone-number = set nrow.phone-number = null

Database System Concepts

6.13

Statement Level Triggers

Instead of executing a separate action for each affected row, a

single action can be executed for all rows affected by a transaction

Use
for each statement instead of for each row

Use referencing old table or referencing new table to refer to temporary tables (called transition tables) containing the affected rows Can be more efficient when dealing with SQL statements that update a large number of rows

Database System Concepts

6.14

External World Actions

We sometimes require external world actions to be triggered on a

database update
E.g. re-ordering an item whose quantity in a warehouse has become small, or turning on an alarm light,
Triggers cannot be used to directly implement external-world

actions, BUT
Triggers can be used to record actions-to-be-taken in a separate table Have an external process that repeatedly scans the table, carries out external-world actions and deletes action from table
E.g. Suppose a warehouse has the following tables

inventory(item, level): How much of each item is in the warehouse

minlevel(item, level) : What is the minimum desired level of each item reorder(item, amount): What quantity should we re-order at a time orders(item, amount) : Orders to be placed (read by external process)

Database System Concepts

6.15

External World Actions (Cont.)

create trigger reorder-trigger after update of amount on inventory referencing old row as orow, new row as nrow for each row when nrow.level < = (select level from minlevel where minlevel.item = orow.item) and orow.level > (select level from minlevel where minlevel.item = orow.item) begin insert into orders (select item, amount from reorder where reorder.item = orow.item) end

Database System Concepts

6.16

When Not To Use Triggers

Triggers were used earlier for tasks such as

maintaining summary data (e.g. total salary of each department) Replicating databases by recording changes to special relations (called change or delta relations) and having a separate process that applies the changes over to a replica
There are better ways of doing these now:

Databases today provide built in materialized view facilities to maintain summary data
Databases provide built-in support for replication

Database System Concepts

6.17

Security
Security - protection from malicious attempts to steal or modify data.

Database system level

Authentication and authorization mechanisms to allow specific users

access only to required data

We concentrate on authorization in the rest of this chapter

Operating system level

Operating system super-users can do anything they want to the

database! Good operating system level security is required.

Network level: must use encryption to prevent

Eavesdropping (unauthorized reading of messages)

Masquerading (pretending to be an authorized user or sending

messages supposedly from authorized users)

Database System Concepts

6.18

Security (Cont.)
Physical level
Physical access to computers allows destruction of data by

intruders; traditional lock-and-key security is needed

Computers must also be protected from floods, fire, etc.

More in Chapter 17 (Recovery)

Human level
Users must be screened to ensure that an authorized users do

not give access to intruders

Users should be trained on password selection and secrecy

Database System Concepts

6.19

Authorization
Forms of authorization on parts of the database:
Read authorization - allows reading, but not modification of data. Insert authorization - allows insertion of new data, but not

modification of existing data.

Update authorization - allows modification, but not deletion of

data.
Delete authorization - allows deletion of data

Database System Concepts

6.20

Authorization (Cont.)
Forms of authorization to modify the database schema:
Index authorization - allows creation and deletion of indices.
Resources authorization - allows creation of new relations. Alteration authorization - allows addition or deletion of attributes in

a relation.
Drop authorization - allows deletion of relations.

Database System Concepts

6.21

Authorization and Views

Users can be given authorization on views, without being given

any authorization on the relations used in the view definition

Ability of views to hide data serves both to simplify usage of the

system and to enhance security by allowing users access only to data they need for their job
A combination or relational-level security and view-level security

can be used to limit a users access to precisely the data that user needs.

Database System Concepts

6.22

View Example
Suppose a bank clerk needs to know the names of the

customers of each branch, but is not authorized to see specific loan information.
Approach: Deny direct access to the loan relation, but grant access to the view cust-loan, which consists only of the names of customers and the branches at which they have a loan. The cust-loan view is defined in SQL as follows:

create view cust-loan as select branchname, customer-name from borrower, loan where borrower.loan-number = loan.loan-number

Database System Concepts

6.23

View Example (Cont.)

The clerk is authorized to see the result of the query: select * from cust-loan When the query processor translates the result into a query on

the actual relations in the database, we obtain a query on borrower and loan.
Authorization must be checked on the clerks query before query

processing replaces a view by the definition of the view.

Database System Concepts

6.24

Authorization on Views
Creation of view does not require resources authorization since

no real relation is being created

The creator of a view gets only those privileges that provide no

additional authorization beyond that he already had.

E.g. if creator of view cust-loan had only read authorization on

borrower and loan, he gets only read authorization on cust-loan

Database System Concepts

6.25

Granting of Privileges
The passage of authorization from one user to another may be

represented by an authorization graph.

The nodes of this graph are the users.
The root of the graph is the database administrator. Consider graph for update authorization on loan. An edge Ui Uj indicates that user Ui has granted update

authorization on loan to Uj.

U1

U4

DBA

U2

U5

U3
Database System Concepts 6.26

Limitations of SQL Authorization

SQL does not support authorization at a tuple level

E.g. we cannot restrict students to see only (the tuples storing) their own grades
With the growth in Web access to databases, database accesses come

primarily from application servers.

End users don't have database user ids, they are all mapped to the same database user id

All end-users of an application (such as a web application) may be

mapped to a single database user The task of authorization in above cases falls on the application program, with no support from SQL
Benefit: fine grained authorizations, such as to individual tuples, can be implemented by the application. Drawback: Authorization must be done in application code, and may be dispersed all over an application Checking for absence of authorization loopholes becomes very difficult since it requires reading large amounts of application code

Database System Concepts

6.27

Encryption
Data may be encrypted when database authorization provisions

do not offer sufficient protection.

Properties of good encryption technique:

Relatively simple for authorized users to encrypt and decrypt data. Encryption scheme depends not on the secrecy of the algorithm but on the secrecy of a parameter of the algorithm called the encryption key. Extremely difficult for an intruder to determine the encryption key.

Database System Concepts

6.28

Encryption (Cont.)

Data Encryption Standard (DES) substitutes characters and rearranges their order on the basis of an encryption key which is provided to authorized users via a secure mechanism. Scheme is no more secure than the key transmission mechanism since the key has to be shared. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a new standard replacing DES, and is based on the Rijndael algorithm, but is also dependent on shared secret keys

Public-key encryption is based on each user having two keys:

public key publicly published key used to encrypt data, but cannot be used to decrypt data private key -- key known only to individual user, and used to decrypt data. Need not be transmitted to the site doing encryption.

Encryption scheme is such that it is impossible or extremely hard to decrypt data given only the public key. The RSA public-key encryption scheme is based on the hardness of factoring a very large number (100's of digits) into its prime components.

Database System Concepts

6.29

Authentication
Password based authentication is widely used, but is susceptible

to sniffing on a network
Challenge-response systems avoid transmission of passwords

DB sends a (randomly generated) challenge string to user

User encrypts string and returns result. DB verifies identity by decrypting result Can use public-key encryption system by DB sending a message encrypted using users public key, and user decrypting and sending the message back
Digital signatures are used to verify authenticity of data

E.g. use private key (in reverse) to encrypt data, and anyone can verify authenticity by using public key (in reverse) to decrypt data. Only holder of private key could have created the encrypted data. Digital signatures also help ensure nonrepudiation: sender cannot later claim to have not created the data

Database System Concepts

6.30

Digital Certificates
Digital certificates are used to verify authenticity of public keys. Problem: when you communicate with a web site, how do you know

if you are talking with the genuine web site or an imposter?

Solution: use the public key of the web site Problem: how to verify if the public key itself is genuine?
Solution:

Every client (e.g. browser) has public keys of a few root-level certification authorities A site can get its name/URL and public key signed by a certification authority: signed document is called a certificate Client can use public key of certification authority to verify certificate Multiple levels of certification authorities can exist. Each certification authority presents its own public-key certificate signed by a higher level authority, and Uses its private key to sign the certificate of other web sites/authorities
Database System Concepts 6.31

Physical Level Security

Protection of equipment from floods, power failure, etc. Protection of disks from theft, erasure, physical damage, etc. Protection of network and terminal cables from wiretaps non-

invasive electronic eavesdropping, physical damage, etc. Solutions:

Replicated hardware:

mirrored disks, dual busses, etc. multiple access paths between every pair of devises
Physical security: locks,police, etc. Software techniques to detect physical security breaches.

Database System Concepts

6.32

Human Level Security

Protection from stolen passwords, sabotage, etc.

Primarily a management problem:

Frequent change of passwords Use of non-guessable passwords Log all invalid access attempts Data audits Careful hiring practices

Database System Concepts

6.33

Operating System Level Security

Protection from invalid logins

File-level access protection (often not very helpful for database

security)
Protection from improper use of superuser authority. Protection from improper use of privileged machine intructions.

Database System Concepts

6.34

Network-Level Security
Each site must ensure that it communicate with trusted sites (not

intruders).
Links must be protected from theft or modification of messages Mechanisms:

Identification protocol (password-based),

Cryptography.

Database System Concepts

6.35

Database-Level Security
Assume security at network, operating system, human, and

physical levels.
Database specific issues:

each user may have authority to read only part of the data and to write only part of the data. User authority may correspond to entire files or relations, but it may also correspond only to parts of files or relations.
Local autonomy suggests site-level authorization control in a

distributed database.
Global control suggests centralized control.

Database System Concepts

6.36