Today we have a guest editorial from Phil Factor.
Have you ever lost the keys to your house and had to break in? One can quickly make the unpleasant discovery that it is extraordinarily easy to do so. I expect that it is even more educational to test out your neighbors’ security systems by attempting to break into their houses, and maybe leaving a box of chocolates if you succeed, though I’ve never actually tried. It would, I imagine, be difficult to explain to the law-enforcement agencies if you get it wrong.
The same is true of SQL Server Databases, particularly if they are tied to a website written by bungling and demented amateurs. Once one has lost the perennial argument as to whether you should expose base tables to the application layer (No no! a thousand times no!) then it is just too easy.
The problem is that the quickest way to understand the importance of website, and database, security is to try cracking open other people’s data-driven websites. . “You allow the programmers to access tables with dynamic SQL? This is what happens!” It is remarkable how easy it is to end up displaying a vast list of all the customers of a site and their passwords. One can’t, however, escape the fact that there is a moral dimension to breaking into other people’s websites just for practice and for demonstrating to your management the failure of implementing DB best-practices.
In addition, some websites are run by hardened criminals engaged in dangerous scams, and may have very unpleasant surprises for anyone foolish enough to choose to try to hack their sites.
No. For many reasons, I can’t bring myself to attack real websites for educational reasons any longer. I like to do my bayonet practice on straw men.
I’m keen on the idea of a practice dummy website that we, as SQL Professionals, put up on the internet, stocked with fake data. We’d use it as a training assault course, so you can all practice breaking into it, just to convince yourself how easy it is to do if the website’s constructor trusts the application layer to do the decent thing and allow the application login rights to anything more than a defended phalanx of stored procedures. Surely every DBA and database developer should do it: It is very educational, and I can assure you that nothing concentrates the mind faster than the sight of credit-card numbers scrolling on the screen instead of the list of branch offices. To cap it all, one could do it without a twinge of conscience. What do you think?
