I have been seeing this database architecture for over thirty years and it’s high time we stopped using it. Before I go too far, let me tell you I get it, you have pressure to get the application out the door and working in a defined timeframe. I still design and develop systems and the pressure to take shortcuts can be great. This short cut is a security killer.
So what have we been doing wrong for all these decades? Put all of the database objects and application code into once schema. This is just a bad idea all around. All it takes is one security bug and the bad guy owns your database. You might as well, put pretty gold wrapping paper with a bow around it and write the bad guy a gift card. If you come to any of my talks, I’ll be happy to demonstrate owning a database, including all your source code and all your data in just a couple of easy commands. But because this is not intended on being a lesson in hacking a database, I wont go into it here.
There is an architecture, that will drastically improve the security of your database. By segmenting your application code from your data and use an API to access the data. Oracle 12c has several PL/SQL enhancements that will make your code much more secure. Oracle 12c PL/SQL now allows you to assign roles to packages, procedures and functions (But you should only be using packages). PL/SQL also now allows you to white list what can execute code. For years, we granted execute to a user, but now you can define what PL/SQL package can call another PL/SQL package using the accessible by clause. We are going to leverage these new features along with authid to define a trusted path that is controllable, fast and secure.
My next several post will move through this architecture, and explaining how to implement it effectively.
