Enache
Enache
3, 17-28, 2023 17
Abstract: Data is being stored electronically increasingly more, and the importance of databases has
therefore increased significantly. Given that the data collected is used for various reasons and the sensitivity
of the data can differ, the importance of database security is crucial. Although, database security has been on
the “agenda” of security experts for a long time, technologies have changed and databases have evolved
accordingly. In this paper, the aim is to offer a refreshed perspective of the security measures implemented in
databases nowadays, with a comparison study of two popular databases: Oracle and Microsoft SQL. The
comparison will provide the strengths and weaknesses of both database systems after analyzing the
authentication, authorization, encryption, auditing and user management features provided by both, to help
determine which Database Management System has a more comprehensive asset of tools to protect its
internal data. Furthermore, this paper can also offer a guide for database administrators, to help them choose
the best strategy and tools to secure their databases.
Keywords: Database security, DBMS, Oracle Database Server, Microsoft SQL Server.
1. Introduction
Data is the most important resource for any organization in today’s digital era, making the
security of the database that stores it a priority. Threats for a database can either come from inside
or outside the organization, which means that security measures of a database must assess both
internal and external sources of a potential attack. Therefore, the security measures cannot be
overlooked, and the security protocols must be robust and comprehensive to avoid any loss or theft
of data which can have a negative impact on the organization’s economic state and its client's
confidence, implicitly.
The goal of database security measures is to ensure confidentiality, integrity, availability,
authentication, authorization and auditing. Confidentiality guarantees that sensitive data is
accessible only to users that are authorized. Integrity ensures that data within the database has not
been altered or removed without the consent of authorized users. Availability is the ability to bring
data from a database responsive to authorized users. Authentication is responsible for the
verification of the identity of the users and making sure that only authorized users have access to
the database. Authorization means that a user has a limited number of actions which can be
performed on the database, such as removing data, altering data, adding data etc. Auditing ensures
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a log of actions performed by every user that impacted the database, so that every user is held
responsible for its actions.
A database is securely managed through a Database Management System (DBMS). The
most popular database management systems include Oracle, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server,
PostgreSQL, and MongoDB (DB-Engines, 2023). From these candidates, Oracle and Microsoft
were chosen, as these are two different database providers (MySQL is developed by Oracle).
Therefore, in this paper, the security measures of the Oracle Database server and Microsoft SQL
Server will be compared, being two of the most popular database management systems. Both
servers supply authentication, authorization, encryption, user management features and auditing to
make the system secure against possible internal or external threats. It will be taken into
consideration the efficiency of the features provided, but also the pliability of the features, for the
reason that a vast variety of options can be suitable for a broad group of people. The differences
between the approaches for each security measure will be analyzed to determine the advantages
and disadvantages of the two. The purpose of this paper is to also give a comprehensive
understanding of the security features provided by both servers to help guide organizations to
choose the suitable system according to their needs and requirements. The hypothesis is that both
servers have implemented the same security measures to be competitive with one another, but
small differences are expected to reveal when the analysis is conducted.
2. Literature review
Previous papers have covered major attacks directed at database servers and the security
measures of the Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Server, but a comparison between the two
approaches has not been conducted. Therefore, this literature review will analyze the security
measures described before. According to (King & Collmeyer, 1973), database sharing refers to the
granting of simultaneous access to a database. Conforming to (Ilić et al., 2021) Oracle users can
share databases, while SQL Server does not have this capability, thus having better protection. As
reported by (MS SQL Server 2022, 2022), in the official documentation of the SQL Server,
database sharing is possible and it’s described on how to do so explicitly, consequently, both
systems have the same vulnerability from this stand of view.
Cloud computing has become a relevant field because it brings several advantages to digital
era such as scalability, cost savings, disaster saving and many more. That being the case, both
Oracle Server and Microsoft SQL Server have a cloud alternative based on the two engines
described realising the importance of cloud coverage. The most important technique for securing
cloud databases is encryption, according to (Soofi, Khan & Amin, 2017), the results show that the
majority of approaches are based on encryption (45%) out of which 71% of encryption techniques
results are validated. Conforming to (Kulkarni & Urolagin, 2012), the major attacks on databases
can be categorized as inference, passive, active and SQLIA. Inference refers to the use of legitimate
data to infer unknown information without having right to directly retrieve that information
(Murray, 2010). As said by (Kulkarni & Urolagin, 2012): passive attack, the attacker only observes
data present in the database and regarding to an active attack, actual database values are modified.
SQLIA (SQL Injection Attack) occurs when an attacker changes the intended effect of an SQL
query by inserting new SQL keywords or operators into the query (Halfond, Viegas & Orso, 2006).
All the security measures assessed in this paper, if configured properly, are efficient steps against
the attacks mentioned.
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Figure 1 displays clearly that more vulnerabilities have been found over the years in the
Oracle Database Server. More vulnerabilities do not necessarily mean that the Oracle Database
Server is less secure than Microsoft SQL Server, it must be taken into consideration what
vulnerabilities have been found to determine the gravity of a vulnerability. Many vulnerabilities
were found to suggest that Oracle Server has been better tested, therefore more secure.
Figure 1. Vulnerabilities by year (Graphic obtained by the author from public extracted data)
Before analyzing the statistics, a brief explanation of the vulnerabilities above is due.
According to (Elleithy et al., 2006), a Denial of Service (DOS) attack is any type of attack on a
networking structure to disable a server from servicing its clients. Bypass vulnerability indicates
that an attack managed to get around an authentication method. Gain Privilege refers to an attacker
getting access to forbidden resources. Overflow vulnerability occurs when data written in a buffer
exceeds its limits. SQL Injection occurs when an attacker changes the intended effect of an SQL
query by inserting new SQL keywords or operators into the query (Halfond, Viegas & Orso, 2006).
XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) materializes most often through web requests and has the purpose of
introducing data in a web application. Directory traversal gives access to an attacker to files on the
server. CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) refers to an attacker executing actions under the mask
of a legitimate user.
Figure 2. Vulnerabilities by type (Graphic obtained by the author from public extracted data)
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The biggest discrepancy in the statistics shown in Figure 2 is for the SQL Injection
vulnerability, this indicates that Microsoft SQL Server has taken better care of the users by
sanitizing queries before executing them. According to (CVE MS SQL Server, 2023) and (CVE
Oracle Server, 2023) no SQLIA has been found in the Oracle Server since 2012, which indicates
that in later patches of the server, more tools were developed to defend against this attack, whereas
Microsoft SQL Server has been vulnerable to SQLIA up to 2021. The rest of the statistics are roughly
even and do not signal any major differences between the two systems proposed to be compared.
Both servers offer Kerberos authentication, Oracle supports Kerberos authentication out of
the box using Oracle Advanced Security Kerberos Authentication. Kerberos is a network
authentication protocol that uses tickets to grant access to users using encrypted communication.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) authentication is a method implemented by both servers, SSL is a
cryptographic protocol used to send data securely and encrypted between two entities. Certificate-
based authentication uses digital certificates issued by a Certificate Authority (CA), this method is
also supported by both database servers. Active Directory Authentication and Azure Active
Directory Authentication are supported by a pair of systems, the first one is beneficial when a
centralized authentication method is used, while the last one is used for cloud-based authentication.
Both systems have developed over the years methods to authenticate users using a variety of
methods to be suitable for more situations for developers.
4.2. Authorization
Authorization is a database security measure responsible for denying or granting access to
different resources to users, based on what authorization the account used has received. Object
permissions are implemented by both systems and refer to allowing users to have access to specific
database objects such as views, tables or stored procedures. An even more granular permission type
is the Row-Level Security (RLS) mechanism that allows controls access over rows or columns from
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the tables in the database, this method is implemented by Microsoft SQL Server. Oracle Database
Server also offers this mechanism, the only difference is the terminology, Virtual Private Database
(VPD) is how Oracle has named its RLS mechanism. Both servers have enabled Context-based
access control, an authorization method that permit users based on their IP Address, location or
time of day. This method is implemented by Microsoft SQL Server under the name Dynamic
Access Control (DAC). A schema is a container for database objects, Schema Permission offers
control over all the objects contained in the schema. This authorization is available on both
database servers.
Table 2. Authorization methods supported
Overall, both database servers provide a wide range of authorization methods of different
granularity which offers the users great coverage of the database.
4.3. Encryption
Encryption is the database security measure that ensures that data stored is not saved in plain
text but altered using an algorithm with a key to make it unreadable or unrecognizable for
unauthorized users. Encryption is most frequently used over sensitive data stored in the database
such as credit cards, medical information, passwords or personal identifying information. Both
Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database Server have implemented Transparent Data Encryption
(TDE), this mechanism provides encryption when data is entered into the database and appropriate
decryption when data is read from the database with little to no overhead. The advantages of using
TDE are that it doesn’t require changes to the code of the applications connected to the database
and that it provides more security for the data stored because even if an attacker has access to the
database files, without the decryption key, the data is unreadable. Conforming to (Sharma &
Johnson, 2014), TDE Column Encryption can be used to encrypt specific data, this approach is
useful when database tables are large, only a small number of columns must be encrypted, and the
columns are known. TDE Tablespace Encryption is suitable when the database contains a large
amount of sensitive data to be encrypted and the columns reside in many different locations
(Sharma & Johnson, 2014). Both servers offer in Transit Encryption using Transport Layer
Security (TLS) and Backup Encryption, Oracle through Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) and
Microsoft through SQL Server Backup Encryption.
According to (Baba et al., 2014) and (Basharat & Azam, 2012), the execution time depends
on the algorithm used and the comparison between the execution times shows an average of
0.841 - second delay for data to be read from an encrypted table compared to a plain text table of
the same size (665060 bytes). The experiment shows that the slowest algorithm was 3DES 168,
therefore the importance of the algorithm used was shown. Both systems support the same hash
algorithms SHA-1, SHA-2, and SHA-3.
Table 3 shows the encryption algorithm supported natively by the two database servers
compared. Blowfish is deprecated and not recommended to use, but ChaCha20 is a notable loss for
Oracle Database Server. This exclusion may be based on the fact that ChaCha20 is not on the list of
FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) compliant cipher suites (FIPS 140-2, 2021).
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ChaCha20 Yes No
Blowfish No Yes
4.4. Auditing
Auditing is the database security measure that logs and keeps track of all the activity
conducted by users such as creating other users, creating tables, altering data and deleting data.
Extended Events Auditing is a method of auditing specific data access events such as select, insert,
update and delete. Both servers have this method of auditing implemented, but for Oracle, the
terminology is Fine-Grained Auditing (FGA). The two systems also have implemented Transparent
Data Encryption Auditing which implies that the access to any encrypted data or TDE keys is
monitored. Firewall Auditing is implemented to log any firewall changes or traffic. Dynamic
Management Views (DMVs) are a method of auditing performance data such as memory usage,
I/O operations and CPU usage. This data is stored by Microsoft SQL Server in the error log. The
equivalent of DMVs for Oracle is Automatic Workload Repository (AWR).
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Test Time for Microsoft SQL Server to Time for Oracle Database
No. complete (ms) Server to complete (ms)
1 6974 18019*
2 6499* 16579
3 6837 16164*
4 10286* 17254
5 7979 17295
Averag 7263.3 17042.6
e
Test No. Time for Microsoft SQL Server Time for Oracle Database
to complete (ms) Server to complete (ms)
Enc Dec Enc Dec
1 16973 7626* 49992 30374
2 18197* 9214 35450* 94569*
3 17126 8352 78642* 27284*
4 16485 9377 37512 87377
5 16433* 11439* 69002 63165
Average 16861.3 8981 52168.6 60305.3
Test No. Time for Microsoft SQL Server Time for Oracle Database
to complete (ms) Server to complete (ms)
Enc Dec Enc Dec
1 16025* 10364 28971* 46286*
2 16496 8817* 85394* 70087
3 16777 10490 42920 89765*
4 17333* 11846* 78603 72806
5 17284 9225 58417 59164
Average 16852.3 10026.3 59980 67352.3
Microsoft SQL Server is clearly the faster server for encrypting and decrypting data using
AES128, with a very fast decryption time, half the time it takes to encrypt data. Oracle Database
Server is slower on average when decrypting than when encrypting.
For AES192 encryption and decryption of the 68910124 byte column, the same observations
come across. Microsoft SQL Server is faster when decrypting, while Oracle Database Server’s
encryption time is faster.
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Test No. Time for Microsoft SQL Server Time for Oracle Database
to complete (ms) Server to complete (ms)
Enc Dec Enc Dec
1 19026* 9722 66364 41088*
2 17168* 9965 71430 114159*
3 17695 9037* 73470* 85715
4 17823 10163 58441* 65508
5 17996 10805* 67501 54454
Average 17838 9950 68431 68559
After comparing the average time from all three encryption algorithms used (AES128 from
Table 5, AES192 from Table 6 and AES256 from Table 7), the main takeaway is that AES128 is
the fastest algorithm to use for both servers when both encryption and decryption are taken into
consideration. Microsoft SQL Server is the faster server when it comes to encrypting and
decrypting data with all the algorithms tested when compared to Oracle Database Server.
Table 8. Time needed to fetch data and decrypt it for the user for each algorithm
Table 9. Time needed to fetch data and decrypt it for the user for each algorithm
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Romanian Journal of Information Technology and Automatic Control, Vol. 33, No. 3, 17-28, 2023 25
8% overhead for AES128, 18% when AES192 is used and 22% for AES256. When comparing the
two performances percentage wise, Oracle Database Server is the more efficient of the two when it
comes to fetching encrypted data.
6. Discussion
The vulnerability statistics provided in this paper show that over the years Oracle has
struggled more against different attacks, but as of 2021, the vulnerabilities found have not been
alarming for either of the database servers. The biggest difference in vulnerabilities found when
splitting them per type has been for the SQL Injection Attacks, where Oracle struggled, due to the
27 findings in 2006 (CVE Oracle Server, 2023). Since 2012 no SQLI vulnerabilities have been
reported for the Oracle Database Server. SQLI occurs due to bad configuration such as not verifying
or sanitizing queries before executing them, not using parameterized queries or bad coding practices.
Therefore, this makes database servers responsible for offering easy-to-configure built-in tools
against this attack and the need for patches for the vulnerabilities signalled is highly important.
The comparison between the security measures confirmed that both database servers have a
comprehensive asset of efficient and useful tools to defend against the most common threats. The
notable difference between the two security measures developed was in the encryption analysis,
where the missing native ChaCha20 algorithm for the Oracle Database Server was unexpected. In
all of the other comparisons, the Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database Server have been a
good match for each other, having implemented the same security methods, some of them under a
different name, but the functionality being the same.
Looking at security incidents in recent years, both Oracle and Microsoft have their own set
of security incidents, and it is not a surprising fact, as the plethora of cyber attacks evolve daily. As
a response to these security incidents, both Oracle and Microsoft release update patches to fix the
bugs in their software. In the next part, some security incident scenarios are presented.
Looking at recent cyber attacks addressing MS SQL Server, it is worth mentioning:
CobaltStrike, (BleepingComputer ColbaltStrike, 2022) or Fargo ransomware (BleepingComputer
TargetCompany, 2022). The most recent cyber attack, deploying the Trigona ransomware, exploits
poorly secured MS SQL Server (BleepingComputer, 2023), via brute-force or dictionary attacks of
account credentials. Thus, after connecting to the server, attackers can deploy CRL Shell and by
exploiting the vulnerability in Windows Secondary Logon Service they can manage to escalate
privileges to LocalSystem. This attack can be conducted only if two conditions are met poor
security configuration of the MS SQL Server (ex. poor passwords as there are no password
complexity mechanisms implemented by the administrator allows brute-force attacks without
permanently blocking an account after several password tries, no audit mechanisms to alert etc.)
and vulnerability CVE-2016-0099 in the Operating System (Microsoft MS16-032, 2023).
In the case of Oracle Database Server, there could not be found recent major cyber attacks
examples, most of them include their Cloud Infrastructure (Mascellino, 2022), but many scenarios
can be conducted, such as database administrators tampering with data and the auditing
mechanisms to counter fake information, human error to share their password etc. Many such
examples of scenarios can be found in (Burleson, 2023).
7. Conclusion
The importance of a secure database has increased in digital era due to the sensitive data that
is being more and more stored electronically. Therefore, it is no surprise that valuable data stored in
databases today can become the target of malicious actors. To have a secured database, security
experts and database administrators should be aware of all the security mechanisms that databases
offer today.
In this paper, the security measures that are the most common and have the purpose of
increasing the strength against theft or loss of data were analysed and compared. It started with a
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theoretical point of view and deepened into a more practical comparison of the two most popular
database solutions used today: Oracle and Microsoft SQL. The main contributions of this paper
include a framework with the main security mechanisms to take into account (authorization,
authentication, encryption, auditing, user management), with concrete examples of security tools
offered by the two database providers and an up-to-date analysis of the vulnerabilities discovered
over the recent years in the two databases. Furthermore, a practical test to compare the encryption
and decryption speed of the most recent database versions of Oracle (version 19c - long-term
release) and MS SQL Server (version 2022) was conducted, from which the result is that for the
same amount of data and the same cryptographic algorithm, MS SQL Server is faster at encrypting
and decrypting. There is evidence that both database servers are reliable, with a downward trend in
the number of vulnerabilities discovered. In addition, the comparison study strengthens the
downward trend observed, having found that both Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database
Server have successfully implemented the same and most effective security measures, therefore if
configured correctly and having up-to-date patches both servers should be equally secure. On the
other hand, the most recent cyber attacks of MS SQL and Oracle were noted and concluded that
there is a recent rise in the attacks addressing MS SQL Servers, most of them being coupled with
vulnerabilities found in the Microsoft Operating System. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that
Oracle did not include ChaCha20, which is not a FIPS-compliant cryptographic algorithm. This can
suggest that Oracle is more natively inclined to be secure, while MS SQL might include
mechanisms which are not necessarily secure. However, this last affirmation requires further
research and testing of the two database systems.
For future works, an ampler palette of database providers, including NoSQL databases
(Nicolau, 2018) is left to be compared using the same security framework mechanisms.
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Mihai TOGAN is a professor and Head of the Computer Science Department at the Military
Technical Academy. With more than 50 scientific papers in international conferences and journals,
technical or program committee member of international conferences, project director or
responsible for four national research projects, his main research contributions include polyvalent
areas of information security aspects such as modern cryptographic systems, cloud security,
hardware mechanisms for optimizing cryptographic operations, electronic identity cards and public
key infrastructures (PKI). He is a committee member of COST Association COST Action CA15127, a
member of the NATO IST Information Systems Technology Panel and a member of the Technical
Committee of the Romanian Standards Association, Techniques for Informatics Security Panel.
Mihai TOGAN este profesor și șeful Departamentului de Știința Calculatoarelor din cadrul
Academiei Tehnice Militare „Ferdinand I” din București. Are peste 50 de articole științifice
publicate în reviste și jurnale internaționale și este membru în comitetul tehnic pentru conferințe
internaționale, director și responsabil de proiect pentru patru proiecte naționale, iar principalele sale
contribuții științifice includ domenii polivalente din securitatea informației, precum: sisteme
moderne de criptare, securitatea în cloud, mecanisme hardware pentru optimizarea operațiilor
criptografice, carduri pentru identitatea electronică sau infrastructurile cu chei publice (PKI).
Domnul profesor Mihai Togan este membru în Comitetul COST Association COST Action
CA15127, membru în Comisia pentru Tehnologie al Sistemelor Informaționale NATO IST și
membru al Comitetului tehnic din Comisia pentru Tehnici pentru Securitate în Informatică, al
Asociației de Standardizare din România.
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