Database Security Threats: A Survey Study

Databases are the repositories of the most important and expensive information in the enterprise. With the increase in access to data stored in databases, the frequency of attacks against those databases has also increased. A database threat refers to an object, person or other entity that represents a risk of loss or corruption of sensitive data to an asset. Today, in many business organizations, the databases and data assets are poorly protected. Databases should be secured more than any systems in the organization. To secure a database environment, many database security models need to be developed. The purpose of the paper is to highlight and threat types and their impacts on sensitive data, and presents different security models. The assumption underlying this study is that by understanding the weaknesses and the threats facing databases, database administrators can then begin to create a security plan to better protect their databases.