Data warehousing is the method of collecting, organizing, and evaluating a mass quantity of data from various sources that would guide the company in the commercial decision-making process. It serves as a single storage place for data and it offers decision-makers access to the data in real-time. Today, we’ll discuss data warehouse security issues; and top security challenges in data warehouse.
The top priority of businesses and companies is to safeguard and secure the data warehouse. The data warehouse provides a wide range of analytical features that help companies to perform complicated data analysis and deliver valuable results. In order to ensure correctness, availability, integrity, and confidentiality; companies manage the mass volume of data and protect it from unauthorized users. Data warehouse plays a key role in regulatory compliance because it offers easy access to the data for investigation and audit.
Database vs. Data Warehouse
The database is the term for well-organized data collection. For instance, excel spreadsheets and address books are two very good examples of databases. DBMS (database management system) comprises software and tools like Mongo DB, MySQL, and Oracle; they allow users access to manage and organize stored data in the database.
However, a data warehouse is also a form of database, and it focuses on maintaining a historical record of data from various sources and offering a quick analysis. Here data warehouse security issues or the security challenges in data warehouse are as follows;
Data Warehouse Security Issues
Let’s discuss the top data warehouse security issues, and they’re as follows;
Continuous Security
Security is a continuous process rather than a one-time project due to the dynamic and versatile nature of the data environment. For instance, it is pointless to map the location of the sensitive data; because it would be obsolete and outdated by the time you receive it.
Behavioral Analysis
It is necessary to analyze the risk of data access due to negative intentions and bad practices. For instance, the individual would target and abuse the specific account or jeopardize the data for various purposes. For instance, if an employee is accessing a large amount of sensitive data, then it is posing a threat to the system and the organization.
Monitoring & Auditing
It is significant to evaluate questions and conduct an audit of the data warehouse. The desired result would be either default or demand a specific configuration due to technology updates. When you have access, the location of the access log would be in a different storage place and requires analysis for aggregation and purging.
Over Privilege Issues
Data warehouse would have more access than actually required when you have configuration issues, changed positions of employees, and evolving of the project. The incompatibility is a form of risk between access and needs that the company should avoid and reduce. In order to resolve this issue, it is significant to analyze the usage from multiple location points relevant to the access granted to the users. It is significant to establish a workflow for rarely accessed data.
Granularity in Access
Sometimes, you want access control to the data warehouse and establish different levels of access like the role of users and teams of particular projects in a certain region. The modern strategy requires database access control that permits or restricts access to the data relevant to the type with no data location limits. For instance, a team on a particular project could access the data and not the PII under this approach.
Proper Authorization
You should configure and allocate users based on the particular roles and teams that would have access to the data. For instance, a particular team would have access to update the data, and the others would only have access to view and read the data.
Access Control
It comprises of integrating and combining with SSO control of the company that would need additional restrictive policies. Only a particular network or VPN would allow you to establish connectivity, or you can do so with the assistance of two-factor authentication.
Data Mapping
Data mapping allows you to catalog the data in the warehouse and beware of the location of the sensitive data and only a few personals have access to it. It is significant both in terms of decreasing the risk factors and complying with regulations.
Malware Attack
Malicious software or the computer virus could temper the data and jeopardize the computer system. The malware attack could happen due to various reasons and factors like comprised or corrupted software download, email attachment, or something else. Hackers employ it to steal the data, alter the data, or perform any other type of actions on the data.
Conclusion: Security Challenges in Data Warehouse
After an in-depth study of the data warehouse security issues; we have realized that security challenges in the data warehouse could jeopardize the company’s system. If you are learning about the security challenges in a data warehouse; then you should keep in mind the abovementioned issues and challenges.
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