Secure Database Design, A comparison of Object database vs. Relational Database Security at SQL level

Abstract

The most commercially available database provides security facility for a single table. However the situation has been changed, as enterprises move from local database to information backbone composed of cooperating heterogeneous database and then direct sharing of information between enterprise on the Internet. A strict security measure at database level is essential for a secure database design. This paper describes the secure SQL features as propounded by Winslett et al[1] which is an extension of SQL[4,5,6] .The object oriented model are more complex than relational model, and object orientation is not based on a formal mathematical model like relational model. For this reason the model for secure object oriented database are complex than the relational secure database model. For a object-oriented database, separate security assumption is to be made about the object orientation model. A discussion has been presented about the different security aspect of object-oriented database and relational database and finally it compares the security measures of both the approaches. A brief discussion is presented on security and user authorization in SQL2. It also indicates various choices that one may implement while designing a secure database.