We have developed an SQL based application for Motorsport and some of our clients are looking at Azure to hold the database. Trouble is they travel around the world to races and as such will need to access the database using what-ever Internet connection they have and cannot pre-define IP addresses in Firewall rules. Is it possible to effectively disable the Azure firewall so that they just need to enter login credentials to the SQL server rather than having to be on specific IP address ranges?
Given the whole idea of the SQL database is access anywhere it is difficult to believe that you have to define access based on IP addresses but I can't find anything which suggests otherwise!
Before giving you mode advice on security, to answer your question, Yes you can allow All inbound to your Azure SQL Database using the following T-SQL
EXECUTE sp_set_database_firewall_rule N'Allow Azure', '0.0.0.0', '255.255.255.255';
The range above allows all. This basically means this range is permitted to pass through firewall. This is for database-level firewall rule. For logical server-level rule, just setting the rule as follows
If database-level firewall rule is not set, the logical server-level rule is applied first.
First, giving direct access to your database over the Internet is a very bad practice from security perspective. Business/End-users are not often well trained in security awareness and the very high chance their computers are compromised. There are some approaches you should consider doing to improve security:
Use built-in Azure SQL Database security feature in Azure such as Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) to always encrypt your databases. If possible, use Azure Key Vault to store the encryption master key to add more encryption layer to the "whole" world. Another feature is Dynamic Data Masking but I don't think it is useful since you allow database access level. Of course, masking some fields is worth considering. Plus, enable Threat Detection to monitor if any anomaly queries (e.g. SQL Injection).
Integrate with Azure Active Directory to monitor access identity. Every access which is authenticated by Azure AD can be monitored and notified. In Azure AD, have a look at Conditional Access policy to see whether it is applicable to your business users. Saying all business users only travel to just a list of countries usually or they use managed computers. Azure AD (Premium) also gives you Sign-In Risk functionality which combines both Analaytics and Machine Learning to identify if a sign-in is potentially risky (from unknown person). If looking at Azure AD as an option, and more stronger then consider Azure AD Universal with Multi-factor authentication options.
Establish an Azure VNET, then configure Point-to-Site (P2S) VPN to your Azure SQL Database. Fortunately recently Microsoft announces the ability to control inbound to your Azure SQL Database inside a given VNET. After setting P2S VPN, give to your business users certificate. Such a certificate needs to be installed on business users' laptop before they can connect to the VNET. Attackers without having access to their computers have no way to connect to your Azure SQL Database.
Add an application layer (e.g. ASP.NET) and login page to let your business user access from this web application. This perhaps adds development efforts but this can help to eliminate at least some direct attack to your database connection string such as brute-force. In the application, handle SQL query to reduce direct SQL Injection. This way requires in-depth understanding of development.
If financial budget is limited, I'd highly suggest you to apply Azure AD and VNET first. Below is the cost drafting:
Azure VPN Gateway: $29.2/month ($0.04/hour * 730). Basic plan is enough. The plan supports up to 128 P2S connections. If your number of business users are greater than 128, just create a new VPN Gateway.
Azure AD: if you target to Free plan, you can store up to 500,000 users. If you like to use Conditional Access and reporting, you need to pay $6/user/month for Premium P1 plan
Azure SQL Database Auditing & Threat Detection: $15/logical server/month. If Auditing is enabled, you are charged Blob storage but the cost for Blob should not really a concern.
Azure App Service: if adding an application layer. The cost is around $60-70/month for small plan (Basic or Standard). Cost also includes development and deployment effort.
What I've said here may add more concerns on the effort, cost to build. Well, I'd leave that decision consideration to you. Just one thing, think about data breaches and your business reputation if an incident happens. The cost would be much more than the implementation.
I strongly advise against it, but if it's development database, you can create an AllowAll rule in the Firewall: How can I allow unknown users to access my SQL (Azure) DB?
Better option, is to use a VPN server so that the users have to log in to the VPN to have access to the database. This way the Db is not accessible to everyone. You can further secure the VPN by adding a sign in certificate so only owners of the certificate can log in to VPN.
My guess is that you have several options:
securing the database with Azure Active Directory users. Each user can login tot the database with specific rights you could also make them readers and disabling the firewall. You could even implement row level security.
Create a Azure API application that performs the actions on the database. Let the users login with there credentials to the api and pass those credentials to SQL server.
I think that in combination with row level security is one of the most secured options. On my blog: msftplayground I created a set of articles about it.
Related
I have inherited a SQL Server box with a series of databases and it has Windows Auth for creation/maintaining the well-baked and established databases. The box itself has many other services which require a user to login as admin to maintain.
I now have to create a new database on the server that only a select few in the company, including IT, will have access to. So I'm kind of chasing my tail on the best place to start.
I want to continue to give the guys the admin level access they require to all the other stuff on this box but limit them on SQL Server options so I can better manage the databases and secure them. What might be the best way to unwind the Windows Authentication method and dole out databases / create opportunities for those users while securing new databases they should not access? Am I even going in the right direction by deviating from the Windows Auth method?
One of the primary reasons for creating a second instance on a server is security. By creating a second instance you basically re-start security over again. So this is an option you might consider for your new database. IE Creating a second instance and putting the "secure" database on it.
A few things you should also consider.
First, yes you should unwind your security as possible and give out the minimum security required for any given user/group. This is a best practices thing. Never give out dbo or sysadmin permissions without an explicit reason to do so, and even then question it thoroughly to make sure that there isn't some other way around the problem. Never give out more permissions than are absolutely required.
Second, It is almost impossible to keep the administrator of the server the instance is on out of the instance if they really really want to get in. And I only say "almost" impossible because there may be a way that I don't know about. At the level of administrator for the server, or domain administrator for that matter you have to assume they can be trusted not to try to break in. You probably won't be able to keep them out anyway.
Last but not least if you can move your instance off of a server that has many other services which require a user to login as admin to maintain. This is a security nightmare first of all (as I said above) and second your SQL server will work better on it's own server. I've even heard advice from experts that say you should never remote into the server a SQL Server instance is on. And if you have to remote in definitely don't copy files around while remoted. Generally said the less going on on the server the happier SQL is.
You can remove the domain administrators ability to access the SQL Server by removing the BUILTIN\Administrators group from the SQL Server logins.
I wouldn't recommend moving away from Windows Authentication, as you would create a whole new set of security concerns you then would have to deal with.
Domain admins can
add themselves to any group (local or domain) that has has access to SQL Server
change the service account policies and log in with that
change SQL server to use a service account in case it uses a built in account
use any user account that has SQL Server access
change password to allow this
Do anything in the domain. At. All.
SQL Server always has Window Auth switched on so it is always available to Domain Admins
If it's that sensitive then it needs to be in separate domain or standalone or something.
Good day all,
I am studing the following case:
Scenario: An application connects to the production database(SQL server 2008) using a generic "SA" user instead of the domain user. This is making traces\logs\organization harder, because everything is flagged as done by SA user!
NOTE: In the application the domain user/password is used, the generic account is only regarding to the database.
Questions: What would be the best pratice in this case? every user should have an account to log in the database? (sql using windows authentication) there are +- 500 users is that an issue regarding to database performance? or a generic account is indicated?
Many thanks!
As others have mentioned, Active Directory and Windows Authentication might be more appropriate if that's an option. But if not...
If the application has a central place that creates the connection & transaction prior to update, you may be able to use SET CONTEXT_INFO to pass along the "real" application user while still using a shared SQL account for the login.
Then in your auditing triggers you can pull the information back out again using the CONTEXT_INFO() function
This is the approach used by at least one commercial auditing tool
See also similar SO questions here and here which reference context_info and a blog post Exploiting Context_Info for Fun and Audit which gives an NHibernate example.
Nitpick on something else in your question: you said it's using sa user. Maybe that was just an example, but probably the application should not have so many rights on the server. Create a user with only the rights needed for the particular database(s) that application uses. This limits the impact of any future security vulnerability (e.g. SQL Injection) in your application. And to take it one step further, you might have one connection string with a read-only user account, and then at the point where you create a transaction to update data, switch to a connection string with the read/write user account. You still get most of the benefits of connection pooling, but you limit even further the impact of any application-tier bugs.
I have a rich client program installed on users PCs where I want to start storing some user created data on SQL Azure/SQL Server. The potential anonymous-to-me users would key in their name, email account and a password which would get stored on SQL Azure/SQL Server. Then they would start generating their own data. I'm anticipating volumes of maybe 1000 users.
There are times when those users would like to run their own queries against their own data but, obviously, I must ensure that they can never view other users data.
I'm thinking the best way to ensure security of data is for each user to be issued their own SQL Azure account and password. I will setup a SQL Azure user and long password, known only to me, which only has permissions to execute several stored procedures with appropriate parameters being passed to those SPs which will create the SQL Server accounts, logins and add the users to a role which I have created.
Obviously someone running debugging tools could figure out the user name and password but I'm thinking this isn't a big deal. If all that particular SQL Azure account can do is execute a few SPs so what if a malicious individual starts doing that. I will only allow a very limited amount of data to be uploaded before I require payment.
The users can only insert records using stored procedures which use the following:
SELECT #uName=SYSTEM_USER
and only select appropriate parent records. All stored procedures which users can execute would have the above as required to ensure they can only work with their own records.
All views will have embedded with them WHERE clauses such as
WHERE tbLoginName = SYSTEM_USER.
I'm new to SQL Server so I may be missing some fundamental concepts so I'd appreciate any and all comments.
The issue is, as pointed out on http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189751.aspx:
In SQL Azure, only the server-level principal login (created by the provisioning process) or members of the loginmanager database role in the master database can create new logins.
Those accounts are also capable of alter and drop logins. So if you embed those accounts in the client application, you’re essentially granting every user permission to alter/drop other users accounts. While an average user won’t do that, a hacker will. So you cannot let a client application manage SQL Azure logins, unless only trusted users (such as your IT administrator) are permitted to use the app.
Best Regards,
Ming Xu.
I would like to point out a potential issue in the approach you mentioned: Your master SQL Azure account need to have privilege to create new accounts and grant them access to particular tables. This means your master account itself need to also have access to all those tables. If you store the master account on the client side, a clever user will get access to all users data.
From my experience, connecting to a database directly from a client side application will almost always make your solution less secure. You can do that for testing purposes, but in a real world solution, I would like to suggest you to use a service. You can host the service in Windows Azure. Then the service will access the database, and client application can only access the service. In this way, you can authenticate clients using any mechanisms you like, such as ASP.NET membership.
Best Regards,
Ming Xu.
You are essentially creating a physical two-tier database connection, allowing a client application to connect directly to the database. This is a problem in many ways, including security and performance. From a security standpoint, not controlling from where your customers will connect, you will need to keep your firewall rule wide open for anyone in the world to try to hack every customer uid/pwd. And instead of having only 1 user id to play with, hackers will have up to 1,000...
The second issue is performance. You applications will be unable to leverage connection pooling, creating undue stress on your database server and possibly hitting throttling issues at some point. Using a web service, with ASP.NET membership to manage logins, and using a service account (i.e. the same uid/pwd) to get data will ensure you will leverage connection pooling correctly if you keep the connection string the same for all your requests.
With a web service layer you also have a whole slew of new options at your fingertips that a two-tier architecture can't offer. This includes centralizing your business and data access logic, adding caching for improved performance, adding auditing in a centralized location, allowing to make updates to parts of your applications without redeploying anything at your customer locations and so much more...
In the cloud, you are much better off leveraging web services.
My 2 cents.
We have some corporate intranet users using a WinForms app to work on a system with SQL server behind. Integrated Security is setup, allowing all users update and delete permissions, where application security limits how and where table updates take place.
However, some users are power users with SQL query tools at their disposal, and access the DB directly for building reports. However, with integrated security, they have default update rights on tables where they should not have, as the application apply rules to the updates.
Is this an example of where it's more appropriate providing the app with a central SQL authenticated login, whilst users get read only rights for integrated security?
As Jon mentioned stored procedures would give you the protection over direct table modifications. There are other options too. You can use SQL Server's "Application Role" (via sp_setapprole proc). This enables you to continue to use a separate ID for everyone but only at application connection time (through the front-end) are the user's rights elevated.
A major downside to using a shared ID is you lose track of who is submitting SQL to the server though if they're all internal you can get to the machine name.
Something else is concerning though. It sounds as if your users can connect to the database and run queries at will. You run a major risk of downtime in the application due to user behavior in the directly connected SQL sessions. If you can pull it off you may want to try to have a reporting database created that is updated at intervals that your business can tolerate, i.e., daily. HTH
I presume from the way that you've worded your question that your app executes sql statements directly. If you could refactor it so that it executes stored procedures, you could grant exec rights on the procedures and deny direct updating of the tables. This might not be possible though, depending on what your app does.
sql authentication is one option. Stored procedures are another. However, building more granular roles for assigning just the appropriate permissions to just the appropriate user types is where you should really be looking.
Additionally, I would really avoid giving these users direct access to the DB at all. Security reasons aside, it doesn't take much for a user who isn't proficient in SQL to accidentally execute a query that will swamp your database server and create an effective denial of service. Even pros can do this accidentally from time to time.
Instead, give them access to a reporting services or analysis services type solution, or use replication to give them access to a clone of the data. This way your production system is protected.
Personally I would do all application data access through stored procedures. I would set Integrated security to only allow users to run the SP's and not manipulate the data directly.
Advanced access can be given to DB admins to manipulate the data directly when needed.
Group based permissions will provide you with much more flexibility for access rights, and less administrative burden when controlling these with integrated security.
What is the best option for a windows application that uses SQL server authentication? Should I create a single SQL account and manage the users inside the application (using a users table). Or should I create a SQL server account for each user. What is your experience? Thank you!
Depends on whether the username/password for the SQL server would be exposed to the user, and whether that would be a problem. Generally for internal apps (in smaller organisations), one would trust the users not too log in directly to the sql server. If you have a middleware layer (ie webservices) the password can be hidden from user.
I prefer to use a general login for the DB and manage users in the application. Even if you do create a login to sql for each application user, they could still connect directly, so why not just use a generic sql login that is easier to manage. This is of course assuming all users have the same accesses.
One good practice, if the users potentially can get direct access to the db, would be to grant access only through Stored Procedures and not directly to tables, so that only certain actions can be performed. Steer away from writing business logic or security checks (except basic ones) within the stored procs.
One way I would solve your problem is to write some webservices that check security and does your CRUD (via datasets, etc), but again it depends on the app and environment.
In summary if you have a middle layer or all users have the same access manage the user within the application and use a single user login. Otherwise use a login per user or role.
One option that I have used in the past is to use the ASP.NET Membership Provider. It makes authentication a breeze to use. The only drawback that I saw was that it added a bunch of tables to your database.
The code for using it is very straight-forward.
Here's a blog post about using this in a Windows app. http://msmvps.com/blogs/theproblemsolver/archive/2006/01/12/80905.aspx Here's another article with more details. http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/jmcfet/Provider-basedASP.NET10162006104542AM/Provider-basedASP.NET.aspx
Here's another article that talks about using it with Windows applications: http://www.theproblemsolver.nl/usingthemembershipproviderinwinforms.htm
Google for "ASP.NET 2.0 Membership Provider", and you will get plenty of hits.
What about having SQL accounts based on the level of permissions needed for the task. For example you could have a read only account just used for reporting if your system has a lot of reporting. You would also need an account what has write access for people to change their passwords and other user admin tasks.
If you have situations where certain users are only going to have access to certain data I would have separate accounts for that data. The problem with using 1 account is you are saying that there is no SQL injection anywhere in your application. That is something everyone would strive for but sometimes perfect security is not possible, hence the multi-pronged approach.