MariaDB Security: How to Secure Your MariaDB Server
MariaDB Security: How to Secure Your MariaDB Server. In this article, we discuss how to secure your MariaDB server against potential threats. MariaDB is a very popular relational database management system that is used by many companies and organisations around the world. However, like any software, MariaDB is at times vulnerable to security threats such as unauthorised access, data leaks and more. Hence it is vital to secure your MariaDB server to protect your data from such threats. In this article, we are discussing the best practices to help you secure your MariaDB server. Those beet practices are: setting strong passwords, enabling encryption, restricting access to the server and using backups. This helps to ensure that your MariaDB server is secure and your data is protected from potential threats.
Let’s start MariaDB Security: How to Secure Your MariaDB Server.
What is MariaDB security?
Well, MariaDB security benefit is it’s support for more storage engines. It caches and indexes faster and has improved replication. What about the benefits of using Mariadb? read below.
Benefits of Using MariaDB
- Access to better user support. The service that MariaDB offers us is an additional maximum 30-minute response time. And combine it with service for notifications, fixes and bug patches, it gives you the ability to support users on this platform better than MySQL.
2. MariaDB proposes more stringent security measures. Well, security breaches are practically the norm for any website owner. The number of intrusions is increasing every year, and breaches have very serious consequences. Therefore, make sure you have a properly secured database.
MariaDB comes with a far wider variety of extra security measures, including:
- Internal security controls and password checking.
- Database encryption.
- PAM and LDAP authentication.
- User roles.
MariaDB Security Best Practices
Read next about MariaDB security practices that are worth considering.
Security of Credentials
When using credentials, ensure that credentials are stored in a secure location. For example, production credentials should be kept in a vault, and developers shouldn’t have credentials in places like public Slack channels, emails, support tickets.
Change Default Database Parameters
The standard options for database settings are useful for getting a fresh installation up and running quickly. However, the same element that makes installation easy is a preferred target for hackers. To avoid this, adjust your database settings, including changing the default port, giving users appropriate privileges and removing anonymous accounts.
If the defaults have been changed, check the security of your database to make sure there are no default settings left that are used to gain access.
Regularly Assess Data Security
There is no doubt that regular vigilance on security and data protection is essential. In the same way you want to back up your data in case of corruption or unplanned downtime, regular audits detect suspicious or malicious behavior as well as errors in the database itself.
What is more, carrying out such analyses also to determines the patches required for your MariaDB.
Keep Easily accessible Audit Log
They data log access should be convenient to allow the information who was accessing what data, and when. Moreover in addition to organizational requirements, data security audits are required by law in some jurisdictions. GPDR, CCPA/CPRA and HIPAA are just a few examples that require mandatory audits. Companies that do not comply with these laws face hefty fines and damage consumer trust if the public believes that their data is not secure.
Check that Strong Credentials are in place for User Accounts.
Some versions of MariaDB include an anonymous user with no password by default. Anonymous accounts are usually given few privileges, but granting database access to an account without a password presents a potential security risk. So, remove user accounts without passwords, but all passwords should include a string of at least 15 alphanumeric characters and symbols. Ideally, these strings should not include common words or phrases found in dictionaries as these are used by password scanners.
Give the least amount of User Rights necessary
To keep the database secure, give each user just enough privileges to do their job, but nothing more. The least privilege rule reduces the risk of the wrong users taking control of an account that has more privileges than it should have. Also be sure to adapt your user privileges when they change positions or roles. Although its good to allocate user privileges for each new user added to the database, its a better policy to control user privileges regularly – a task many organisations overlook.
Plus whilst giving temporary privileges to a project, ensure that the privileges are revoked whenever they are no longer needed.
MariaDB Security Configuration
Like other SQL language databases, setting up a MariaDB security configuration requires consideration of the following elements for adequate security.
Encryption
In MariaDB, like any other SQL database, encryption is used to hide data. This is done by directly encrypting the data or the container in which the data is stored. Some of the methods and tools MariaDB uses for encryption include:
- Cipher block chaining (CBC).
- In transit data encryption.
- At rest data encryption.
- TSL/SSL certificates.
Auditing
Actually Mariadb has its own audit plugin, this is mainly used to record server activity including user and host connections, queries made and any tables or variables. By properly managing the audit trail, security is investigated and relevant compliance requirements are met.
User Authentication and Authorization
Both authentication and authorisation refer to a user’s ability to connect to the database and their privileges. All elements within a structure such as objects, tables, rows and columns have privileges, allowing control over who has access to what. Additionally privileges are made more complex through the use of data masking and security mechanisms at the individual row level.
Key Steps to Ensure Database Security
Data Masking
The SkySQL plugin has granular data masking built in to prevent unauthorised viewing of any column of data in a row. A data masking plugin is configured to granularly hide sensitive data. As a result, this has a very positive impact on security.
Denial of Service Protection
Result limit filters are configured to block malicious queries designed to slow down the database by returning thousands, if not millions, of rows. In addition, for protection against denial of service (DoS) and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, resource limits are set for users to reduce the frequency of connections, queries and more.
Firewall
Introduce firewalls to create additional security setting for accessing MariaDB Database.
MariaDB Security: How to Secure Your MariaDB Server Conclusion
Protecting your MariaDB server is key to preventing unauthorised access, securing sensitive data and maintaining the integrity of your system. By following the best practices outlined in this article, you significantly reduce the danger of a security breach and ensure the safety of your data. Furthermore it is crucial to regularly monitor your server’s logs and audit trails to quickly detect and respond to any potential security threats. Remaining vigilant and proactive helps to ensure that your MariaDB server remains secure and protected from malicious attacks.
Additionally by taking the necessary steps to secure your MariaDB server, you enjoy the benefits of a reliable and efficient database system while protecting your data and your business.
