On Sunday 22 August 2004 4:43 pm, Sanjay Arora wrote:
> Hi all
>
> What are the issues involved in securing a RDBMS that is serving a
> web-server in DMZ. RDBMS is postgreSQL, OS is Linux, Webserver is Apache.
Your main challenge is to avoid SQL-injection attacks from user-supplied
input.
This cannot be prevented with firewalls - it requires careful coding and
validation of input in the scripts which join Apache to PostgreSQL.
I would say that a firewall between the Apache and the PostgreSQL machines, or
a firewall in front of a combined machine, is essential, and should provide
HTTP access only, but is actually only a small part of the security solution
in a case such as this.
> Should I bifurcate the DB and put the registration part in DMZ or should I
> put a copy of the registration part in DMZ and sync it periodically with the
> main DB. Or should I keep full DB on the Green Network & create a pinhole to
> access the RDBMS from the Green subnet, maybe in some kind of ssh tunnel.
I would put the DB in the DMZ and provide selective access to it from inside +
outside - that's what a DMZ is for. Never put a public-access machine on
the internal network, and don't split an application with some sort of data
sync going on unless you *really* have to.
Regards,
Antony.
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