SQL Server Security – you can’t do without it
Security – I find it very hard to get enthusiastic about security, after all it doesn’t visibly do anything; I’d far rather solve the world’s problems than avoid them. However this is such an important topic I thought I should blog on the topic sooner rather than later.
The aim of this blog is to take some of the pain out of the subject by pointing you to a few resources that I think should give you, the SQL DBA, all you need to sleep peacefully at night; and without too much effort, give you more time to get on and help your business make money.
There are two essential things you should do:
Firstly, read this article “10 Steps to Help Secure SQL Server 2000” found at:
https://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinfo/administration/2000/security/securingsqlserver.asp
Follow this article and you won’t make any basic mistakes.
Secondly, run the “Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer v1.2.1 (for IT Professionals) ” found at:
There’s a handy Q&A for this here: https://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/tools/mbsaqa.mspx
So if you do these two things I doubt if your boss will ever have grounds to sack you over a failure to implement a secure SQL Server installation – assuming you follow all the good advice.
Beyond this there’s a jolly good website that you should have bookmarked known as the “SQL Server Security Center”, found at: https://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/prodtech/dbsql/default.mspx
This provides everything you need to know - particularly on how to stay secure and headline topics. Have a look at it now!