Data Warehouse Security
Data warehouse security can be attained with a fairly easy seven-step program.
Imagine your company has just built its first data warehouse. The users can access corporate data when they want it, in whatever form they desire, and where it is needed. Because of this process, a company can solve any organizational problems and it helps to make important decisions. Also the frustration with the inability of the information systems department to respond quickly to your needs for information has been alleviated
However, what is your organization doing to identify, classify, and protect the valuable information stored there? Investigating with the data warehouse architects and administrators you are told not to worry, because the built-in security system of your data warehouse environment is the best there is. Somehow there still seems to be some doubt. So the process of testing begins to find the answers to your questions.
You find that as a general user, you easily manage to access some powerful user tools that were supposed to be restricted to those users given special access privileges. The tools allow you to issue complex queries that access restricted data, use up enormous resources, and slow system response time. You have someone outside the company, a reformed hacker check the data warehouse security and he tells you he is able to access sensitive corporate material through the Internet without much problem. He reports to you your salaries, dates of birth, social security numbers, and other confidential data. It becomes painfully obvious, like most companies, does not have a sufficient data warehouse security system. Also alarming is that your data warehouse administrators could not find the causes of recent data warehouse security system breaches until you showed them the results of your tests. Only then was it clear to them that security had not been a priority during the development of the data warehouse. Pressures to complete the data warehouse project on time and within budget, not to mention getting waiting users off their backs, security requirements took a back seat. A data warehouse and data warehouse security system is a collection of integrated databases designed to support company wide decision-making and problem-solving functions. It contains both highly detailed and also summarized historical data related to various categories. All units of data correspond to specific time frames. The data warehouse is a very important part of company-wide decisions. It does not ordinarily involve data updating, but gives end-users access to data and can perform analysis. The data warehouse eliminates the need for the technical department to perform informational processing for end-users. It also provides other competitive advantages for the company, such as enabling employees to effectively and efficiently solve organizational problems; minimizing operating costs and maximizing revenue and minimizing the impact of employee turnovers. The data warehouse security requirements of the data warehouse environment are not so different from other distributed computing systems. Therefore, having an internal control data warehouse security mechanism to assure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data in a warehoused environment is of utmost importance. Now as to the seven steps of good data warehouse security: Unfortunately, as discussed in the previous paragraphs, little consideration may be given to security during the development phase of the data warehouses. Achieving proactive data warehouse security requires a seven-phase process that involves: (1) Identifying data
(2) Classifying data
(3) Understanding the value of data
(4) Identifying where data security vulnerabilities are
(5) Identifying data protection measures and their costs
(6) Selecting cost-effective security measures
(7) Evaluating the effectiveness of security measures. When all of these phases are taken into consideration during the building of a data warehouse environment they make up the company-wide vulnerability assessment that will ultimately help to put into place an effective data warehouse security system. A major priority for any business must be computer security. Whether you are
protecting your files and PC's form viruses or you are looking to improve
network security
protecting your
project
management systems is crucial.
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