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Question of the Day

The Internals of Writing a Page

The Voice of the DBA

Are Data Breaches Inevitable?

I read a piece recently that got me thinking that data breaches might be inevitable. Disclosure: This was written by Redgate, for whom I work, titled "Data breaches May Be Inevitable—Compliance Failures Don’t Have to Be". It's based on our research with the State of Database Landscape survey as well as feedback and conversations with customers.

The thing that caught my eye was the first part: data breaches may be inevitable. Do you think that's true? Are we doomed to lose data in our organizations, not as a possibility, but something that will happen at some unknown time in the future? Those of you who have suffered breaches might agree with this, but for those of you who haven't had to deal with that situation, are you resigned to it happening at some point?

I've gone through phases in my career. In a few jobs I worried about this. When we started SQL Server Central, we were very careful and cautious, trying to be sure we wouldn't be caught losing email addresses of the community members. We never had an issue, and I'm proud of that. These days at Redgate, I worry a bit more, mostly because we're growing and it only takes one person to click on a phishing email to cause problems. Fortunately our IT group is on the ball and even conducts plenty of "mystery shopper" email campaigns to test our awareness with follow-ups to help ensure people are aware and careful with how we handle data.

The criminals always have an advantage in that they are focused and only have to take advantage of one mistake to win. We have to constantly be vigilant, across all our staffers and systems. Simple mistakes, or worse, typos in complex configuration files could result in a data breach. One of the places this can happen is in test/dev environments where more people the make changes. If we have sensitive data in those places, we're increasing our risk.

I don't think breaches are inevitable, mostly because companies are getting better at simple security measures and reducing the ways in which unauthorized access takes place. There's also the fact that the world is huge and there are more and more systems all the time, which might reduce our chances of the criminals targeting us. Don't get complacent, as automation gives criminals a tool to attack us at scale, in the same way it lets us get more done with less.

One criminal can do a lot of damage, so remember that the next time you're annoyed by your MFA or other security measures.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums

Featured Contents

How to Safely Remove a SQL Server Data File Without Downtime

shukla.chandan12 from SQLServerCentral

Learn how to safely remove a SQL Server .ndf data file without any downtime using DBCC SHRINKFILE (EMPTYFILE). This hands-on tutorial walks through real-world Azure-based setup, data redistribution, and storage cleanup — ideal for DBAs managing enterprise SQL Server environments.

SQL ASCII Function Use and Examples

Additional Articles from MSSQLTips.com

The ASCII function is used to return the ASCII value for the first character in a string.

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Execute Fabric Data Pipeline from Azure Data Factory

Koen Verbeeck from Koen Verbeeck

In the blog post Call a Fabric REST API from Azure Data Factory I explained how you can call a Fabric REST API endpoint from Azure Data Factory (or...

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - The Book of Redgate: Customer Quotes

Steve Jones - SSC Editor from The Voice of the DBA

Many organizations list customer testimonials and quotes on their websites or literature. It makes sense to show off those places where you’ve done well in hopes of influencing others...

Pro T-SQL 2022: Toward Speed, Scalability, and Standardization for SQL Server Developers

Site Owners from SQLServerCentral

Learn how to write and design simple and efficient T-SQL code. This is a hands-on book that teaches you how to write better T-SQL with examples and straightforward explanations.

Question of the Day

Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):
	The Internals of Writing a Page
In SQL Server, when the buffer manager write pages to disk, page protection is added to the pages. There are two types of protection: torn page protection and checksum page protection. What happens with regards to concurrency with page protection during writes?
Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor)

Execution Plan Operators

When looking at an execution plan in SSMS, what types of operators are shown?

Answer: Logical and physical operators, and language elements

Explanation: You can see logical and physical operators as well as language elements. You can see examples of these in the reference below. Ref: Logical and physical showplan operator reference - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/showplan-logical-and-physical-operators-reference?view=sql-server-ver16

Discuss this question and answer on the forums

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.

SQL Server 2016 - Administration

Just To Talk – Your Safe Space for Online Therapy - Welcome to Just To Talk, your trusted platform for compassionate, confidential online therapy. At Just To Talk, we understand the power of being heard. Whether you're managing stress, anxiety, or simply need someone to talk to, our licensed professionals are here to support you. We offer flexible, affordable sessions designed around your needs—all from the […]

SQL Server 2019 - Administration

SSPI handshake failed error code 0x80090311 - Hi, I have a workstation with SQL Express 2019 installed and I have a PC with a .NET application built in VB.NET. The App logs in as Attendance and the SQL PC logs in as Phone System. They are on the same domain and the SPNs match the server and Attendance has access to the […]

SQL Server 2019 - Development

Merge spans with Dates Logic - --for a given member if the startdate and endate is continous we need to keep in single record and if start date and end date is not continous i need to keep in separate record for a given member. drop table #test create table #test (ID int, startdate datetime, enddate datetime ) insert into […]

Problem creating a Linked Server to MS Access 97 database from SQL Server 2019 - Hi there I need help on creating a Linked Server to an MS Access 97 database from a SQL Server 2019 express instance. We have a SQL Server Express 2019 instance and we are trying to create a Linked Server to an MS Access 97 database located on a network drive. Now I know that […]

continuous membership - Hi, I am trying to find everyone who had membership for a continuous year without any gaps. The sample below shows two members, one who is correct,760890291, and should be returned but the other one, 82928404, should not but it does. My code is below. What would I need to change? Thanks. CREATE TABLE […]

SQL Azure - Administration

Azure Managed Instance Backups - Could Backup Be Completely Lost? - Some of our more regulated customers (banks, gambling sites and suchlike) like to know that we have a robust and tested recovery routine. We use Azure Managed Instance (MI) and the backup/restore process for 'normal' requirements is quite simple. But this had me thinking - is it possible for Azure to be in such a […]

DP-300 exam - Hi, I would like to know if anyone has taken the DP-300 exam recently, so that they can recommend some material for me to study. The company I work for has taken on a project and I need to get this certification as soon as possible. Thank you.

Reporting Services

Multiple value Parameters in SSRS connecting to Teradata returns error - I am connecting to Teradata using SSRS and have multiple parameters, many of them that seek multiple values. The challenge is all these parameters may not be always filled, sometimes it could be blank. So I am using a logic as below - Select * from Table Where (Param1 in (?) or ? = '') […]

Integration Services

SSIS Automatically Coverting a NULL to a Blank Space - Hello, I was wondering if anyone knew how to prevent this issue I am experiencing. I have a SQL Source with a query that is just selecting data where fields are casted as a varchar value. When running the query in SQL Server, the values either have a valid value or are null as expected. […]

how to export clickable urls in excel from SSIS - I'm using ssis to copy excel file from a template, and update some cells on each copied files. problem is that after generating the Excel filen when opening it, the cell that is supposed to contains the clickable url is still I have to select the cell, then click on the formula bar and then […]

PostgreSQL

Need query help - MAX record - Hello - I have attached a Word document here with details about my issue. I have shown an excerpt from the main table in the first section. There are 5 different records for the subscriber in question. The second section shows how the MAX command restricts the output to 2 records. This output makes sense. […]

Need query help - MAX record - I am having trouble writing linking the MAX query that I created back to the table to produce other data elements about the MAX record. I have created a Word document showing an excerpt from the main data table, how the MAX query pulls in the appropriate records, but then I am stumped on how […]

SQL Server 2022 - Development

Need help with merging data based on date and process - I have two sources , one coming from datalake and another is file. we need to match date to combine both dates. But , the data from source may not be avilable daily or might be delayed. So, we have data from source coming daily but data from file comes only from Tuesday - Saturday […]

Migrating data from using ManagerId to HierarchyId - I have a table called Person with the following schema: CREATE TABLE [People].[Person]( [Id] [smallint] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, [FirstName] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL, [LastName] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL, [LineManagerId] [smallint] NULL, [OrganisationLevel] [hierarchyid] NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GO LineManagerId is a FK to the People.Person table to identify the person in the table who is the Person's […]

Parse SQL XML column into dynamic temp tables - Hello SSC, I hope everyone is happy and healthy and ready for spring! I am looking for some alternatives to parsing an XML column in SQL. I have over 1000 rows in XML format that I would like to parse one time into a SQL table or multiple SQL tables. The caveat is that the […]

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