Re: Create a cache DB between web portal and internal DB?

* Dearman, Rick <rick(dot)dearman(at)teamuk(dot)telstra(dot)com> [1245 05:45]:
> I have a requirement from my security manager but I can't seem to find a good solution.
> So I wondered if someone had done something similar.
>
> We have a web portal and a DB in PostgreSQL (obviously) which contains user data.
> The portal is accessed by account managers who have access to only specific user accounts.
> This all works fine however the concern is that if you ever got access more directly
> into the DB through a hack, or poorly designed site code,
> you could potentially access information that you shouldn't.
>
> So the idea is that he is floating is we create a cache DB between the portal and the
> main DB which will only keep the information currently being worked on by the person logged in,

If I was you, I'd have major concerns and have a chat with the manager in question.

How is that going to help anything - surely the cache DB would have to do a
query to populate itself anyway, which you have to check to gain any security benefit?
You're in a similar boat for updates.

If you're going to check the queries it makes somehow, just do those checks on the queries
you get in the first place.

This sounds like a pain in the arse to implement, maintain and debug with no benefits.
Far better to spend that time cleaning up your application code and implementing a decent backup
policy.

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