Best SQL Server Security Hardening Practices

In today’s digital era, most organizations are using SQL Server Databases for storing sensitive and critical data. That’s why SQL Server security hardening is necessary. With the SQL Server database security best practices, database administrators can secure and protect their data from unauthorized access, data leaks, and other threats. 

Let’s take a thorough look at what security hardening in SQL Server means and how we can implement it. 

What is SQL Server Security Hardening & Why Is It Necessary?

Security SQL Hardening practically means safeguarding the crucial data stored in the database by implementing certain SQL security practices. When an organization or business uses an SQL Server database to store sensitive data, it implements these strict security measures to protect the data. The crucial data residing in the database is always at a high risk of multiple SQL threats. To protect the data from these potential threats, the database administrators must follow these SQL Server security measures.

With the help of these practices, users efficiently safeguard their data from any unauthorized access or threats to the database. Before understanding more about this SQL Security method, we will first take a look at the potential threats that risk SQL Server security.

Possible SQL Server Threats Risking SQL Security 

Data Leakages & Theft: Sometimes the information within the SQL database gets exposed to unknown users who might use the data unethically. There are even chances of data theft in the SQL database due to misuse of the SQL passwords. In these situations, SQL Server security hardening helps users avoid these attacks more precisely. 

Unauthorized Access: This happens when the database passwords get mishandled or due to weak passwords in the SQL Database. The attackers in this case may try various methods and techniques to get into the database and access the information inappropriately. 

SQL Injection Attacks: This is a type of cyber attack that directly impacts the database and the sensitive information stored in it. In this attack, the attackers simply manipulate the SQL database using various techniques and get access to or exploit the information in the database. 

Malware Attacks: When the SQL server gets infected with malware attacks, the data in the database is at high risk of being stolen or losing its confidentiality. These attacks pose a great risk to data security and privacy, which is why SQL Server security hardening is required. 

Denial of Service Attacks: In DoS attacks, the attackers flood the database with a huge number of SQL queries to exhaust the server. This restricts the user from using the database for a prolonged period of time till the issue is resolved. 

Insider Threats – The employees of any organization who possess the crucial permissions within the database might misuse their rights. With this, the entire database security might be compromised, risking the data of users. 

Data Manipulation – Data manipulation is also one of the risks that can arise due to a lack of SQL Security. Any unauthorized user can tamper with the data and misuse it for their benefit. 

Best Methods for SQL Server Security Hardening

There are multiple methods that can help with Security SQL hardening. We will take a look at these SQL Server database security best practices one by one to understand their implementation and working. The first method is securing the server. 

SQL Server Installation Security

This means that only the features or instances that are necessary for the SQL Server Database should be installed. Many features that are not required for the database, can pose a risk to the database as they may have some malicious files with them. Installing these files in the server can affect the database and result in data loss or data theft. The files that are essential for the database can be:

SQL Server Database Engine Services: The database engine services play an essential role in storing and processing the data present in the database. 

Management Tools for SQL Server: Helps to manage and secure the SQL Database by providing tools for maintaining and securing the data. 

Integration Systems: These tools majorly help in securely transferring the database from one system to another system without any complexities. 

These tools can help with maintaining the safety of the SQL Server and also with the SQL Server security hardening.  

Understand Authorization and Authentication Configuration 

Understanding these two terms and further securing them helps with SQL Security. The Authentication determines who can access and use the SQL Server database. Whereas, authorization means what operations they can perform within the database after authentication.

Going for a safer authentication mode for the SQL Server can protect the database from unauthorized access. Additionally, go for stronger passwords and security configurations to protect the data and prevent any access or data theft of the information present in the database. There are two modes of authentication in SQL Server:

Windows Authentication Mode: With the Windows authentication mode in SQL Server, users can authenticate with the server easily by using the Windows credentials. The Windows Authentication mode works well when both the application and the SQL Server are present in the Windows environment. This authentication mode is much safer for SQL Server Authentication as it offers a more centralized authentication mode. Hence, it becomes a good choice for SQL Server security hardening.

SQL Server Authentication Mode:  In this SQL authentication mode, users have to enter their SQL Server Login IDs and Passwords to authenticate with the SQL Server.  In this mode of authentication, the user’s credentials are stored in the SQL Server rather than in Windows.

Following this SQL Server security practice will help the database administrators in the given ways:

• Reduces the risk of any unauthorized access or interference in the database.
• Helps minimize the damage any compromised or affected database can cause. 
• Works well with the compliance and legalities.

Strengthened Network Security

With the help of strengthened network security, users can effectively secure the connection and the data between SQL Server and the clients. To prevent any attacks on the server from the unsecured network ports or any exposed SQL servers, it is highly recommended to strengthen the network security of the  SQL database.

With open networks and SQL Server ports, the threat of various attacks increases, so to avoid the risk of threats like these, SQL Server security hardening is necessary. Moreover, in most cases, SQL injection attacks happen due to weak network security. 

To prevent these risks and attacks, a user can follow the given practices and further secure their networks:

• Implement the use of firewalls to secure the ports from any unknown IPs.
• Unless required, keep the SQL Server Browser Services disabled. 
• In cloud setups, use VPNs to ensure network security.

By implementing and following these SQL Server database security best practices, users can ensure that there are no weak points in the server network and further secure their data effectively.

Securing SQL Server Configuration

Strengthening the SQL Server Configuration settings means adjusting the server settings that might lead to any risks for the database or affect the SQL Security.
Along with network security, it is also important to secure the configuration settings. The configuration of the server plays a major role in the protection of the database environment. Securing the configuration can protect the database from possible threats like data breaches, data theft, and other attacks.

Here are some ways that can help the users with the SQL configuration settings:

• Disable any features or functions that are not being used in the SQL Server.
• Give the accounts minimal privileges so that the data remains secure from any tampering.
• Implement secure startup options for the SQL Server.

With these methods, it will become much more efficient for the database administrators to keep the server secure and further change any settings that might be causing harm to the database.

Data Encryption In SQL Server Database 

As we all know, data encryption is one of the best ways to protect crucial data from attackers. Implementing data encryption in the SQL Server database helps users to make their sensitive data unreadable and inaccessible to attackers. With this SQL Server security hardening method, users can protect their sensitive information residing in the database and protect the data in a better way. 

Using Encryption techniques like the Transparent Data Encryption, Always Encrypted, can effectively encrypt and protect the data from being accessed by any unwanted user. Furthermore, this method in the SQL Server database security best practices prevents the data from being exposed even in the case of backup theft.

Keep the SQL Server Regularly Updated

With each new update in SQL Server, there are new security upgrades. By keeping the SQL Server regularly updated, you minimize the risk of various attacks and threats to the database. Additionally, it is beneficial to keep up-to-date information about regular security modifications and possible SQL Server vulnerabilities to protect the database accordingly.

Regularly updating the SQL Server with new and upgraded patches helps the database remain secure by using the advanced security patches with the new updates. It further closes any security loopholes that can pose any harm to the database and the data residing in it. 

Using Advanced Security Features

With the regular security protocols in the SQL Server, a user should use the advanced security features of the SQL Server. These features come with major benefits of providing high security to the database. Let’s take a look at a few examples of these advanced security features in SQL Server that can help with SQL Server security hardening. 

Transparent Data Encryption: The TDE helps to prevent any kind of unauthorized access to the database. 

Advanced Threat Protection: Helps in detecting any possible threats to the SQL server database to keep it more secure from attackers. 

Row-Level Security: It helps with providing security to the row level to offer precise data access control in the SQL Database. 

Dynamic Data Masking: This feature helps with hiding and securing sensitive data in the query outcomes.

There are various benefits of following these SQL hardening practices, like:

• Offers enhanced control over accessing sensitive data in the database. 
• Supports various access controls without requiring any minor or major changes in the database schema. 
• Helps with adding an intelligent and advanced layer of protection in the database.

Keep Track of SQL Server Activities

Monitoring the database activities greatly helps in detecting and diagnosing any issues in the SQL Server. There are certain tools that can help you with precise SQL security monitoring. Let’s take a look at these tools once to understand how they help.

By Using SSMS: The SQL Server Management Studio helps greatly with detecting and resolving any issues or problems in the SQL Server. This tool can be used for SQL Server security hardening. 

By Using SQL Server Profiler:  This is also one of the SQL Server monitoring tools that can help with finding and reporting errors in the SQL Server. 

With the help of Performance Monitor: By using PerfMon, a user can easily track down the activities and can easily check the resource usage and the performance reports in the SQL Server. 

Keeping a track of activities taking place within the SQL Server database helps with the following things:

• Real-time detection and action on any malicious or suspicious activities in the SQL Server database. 
• In case of any data breach or theft, it can be recorded and tracked who accesses the database and what operations they perform in the database. 
• With proper activity monitoring, it can be beneficial for organizations in compliance and regulatory purposes.

Choosing Accurate Tools for SQL Security 

Various tools help with SQL Server security hardening. We will now take a look at these tools one by one to understand how they help for SQL Server database security best practices.

SQL Server Assessment and Planning Toolkit: The tool helps the users to keep track of all the performance issues, and other vulnerabilities of the SQL Server. 

SQL Server Secure Score: It helps with the analytics of SQL Server configurations. Also, the security settings for better detection and monitoring of the database. 

SQL Server Vulnerability Assessment: As the name suggests, this tool majorly helps users to spot vulnerabilities in the SQL Server. 

Using the right tools offers various benefits in SQL Server Security Hardening. Here are some of the advantages of using these tools: 

• Helps with detecting and reducing any risk of human errors in the database.
• Offers improved visibility across large environments.
• Minimizes the requirement of repetitive security tasks by automating them.

Keep Secure Backups

To keep complete backups and save them in a secure way is highly necessary for protecting the database. It helps to prevent SQL attacks and for SQL Server security hardening. Sometimes not only the attackers but also someone from the organization can misuse the SQL Data backups. So it is highly important to understand the backup settings in the SQL Server and then use precise backup options. 

With the SQL Server, you get two options for backups, Differential Backups and Full Backups.

Let’s understand what is the difference between the two.

Differential Backup: This backup mode proceeds with backing up the changes in the database since the last full backup.

Full Backup: This backup mode takes the complete backup of the entire database. 

Use the appropriate backup mode to keep a secure backup of the database. Also to protect the sensitive data from unauthorized access, there are other benefits of keeping secure backup files:

• With the help of the appropriate backup mode, users can ensure quick recovery. This helps in case of any corruption or damage in the database.
• Reduces the risk of data theft from backup media in the SQL Server database.
• Minimizes the risk of downtime and data loss in any SQL Server disaster.

Conclusion

Through this article, we have learned the concept of SQL Server Security Hardening. Additionally, to simplify the concept, we understood what security hardening meant and why it is necessary. We have discussed all the challenges that require high-security protocols. At last, we have discussed the best practices for security tightening in the SQL Server.