Sessions are an important part of any HTTP-based web framework. They allow web servers to keep track of the identities of repeat HTTP clients without requiring them to re-authenticate for each request. There are several different ways to keep track of sessions. Some do not require the server to persist session data (like JSON Web Tokens), while others do.

Django, a popular Python-based web framework, ships with a default session backend that does store persistent session data. There are several storage and caching options; you can elect to simply store sessions in the SQL database and look them up each…

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Acknowledging Risk
• Understanding the principal of low hanging fruit
• Creating a security policy
• Server Security
• Email attackers
• User Roles and Permissions
• Data Sanitizing
• Request Throttling
• Physical Security to Augment Digital Steps
• Self Reflection

Get the Checklist here!

Introduction

Hi, my name is Kirk. I’m a full stack software developer working on the .NET ecosystem and managing a large SQL Server database. I wrote this post to try to answer some of my own questions about what modern database security in 2021 looks like, especially if you’re in the tech field and looking into creating or supporting your…

Introduction

In the past decade, Data Security has become one of the biggest concerns for both small and large organizations. With more and more data breaches occurring every day, and legislators struggling to keep up with innovation, it is essential to protect sensitive data by all means necessary. Therefore, the first defense mechanism of every organization should be setting up proper network access and firewalls to prevent unauthorized access and secure all the endpoints.

However, security analysts should always work under the assumption that an attacker will find a way to break into a system. This is where encryption becomes crucial…

InnoDB is now the primary storage engine that MySQL can be proud of — however, it was not always that way; in the past, MyISAM was widely regarded as the better choice. It was used for various projects ranging from data analysis to developing simple content management systems for forums. Today, we will explore the database engine’s storied past and what the future may hold for MyISAM.

Why MyISAM?

In the past, MyISAM was widely regarded as the storage engine of choice mainly because it was said to be more simple to design and maintain. It supported full-text indexes and took up…

Introduction

If you have been working with MySQL for a while, you probably already know that MySQL offers multiple methods for importing data. One of those — the INSERT INTO statement – could be considered a standard way to do so. However, MySQL also has another way that dumps can be imported – LOAD DATA INFILE. Such a statement might be helpful if we find ourselves working with a lot of data inside our database instances. …

Introduction

Properly designing and using indexes available in multiple flavors of MySQL can be a challenge due to the variety of their types and all of the nuances unique to them. However, don’t fret — this blog post should act as a decent starting point for people wanting to learn how MySQL uses indexes on a deeper level.

What are Indexes and When Should We Use Them?

In their most basic form, database indexes act as a list of records — records that have a reference to a database structure in which they reside. Indexes are mostly used to eliminate data from consideration, and by doing so, make queries faster…

Introduction

If you’ve ever worked with databases, you have probably encountered some queries that seem to take longer to execute than they should. Queries can become slow for various reasons ranging from improper index usage to bugs in the storage engine itself. However, in most cases, queries become slow because developers or MySQL database administrators neglect to monitor them and keep an eye on their performance. In this blog, we will figure out how to avoid that.

What is a Query?

To understand what makes queries slow and improve their performance, we have to start from the very bottom. First, we have to understand what…

Introduction

In a single query, JOINS are utilized to get data from several tables. In MySQL, JOINS aggregate data from several tables and get it as a single result. Each table in a relational database includes unique or common data, and each table is connected logically. JOINS are used to obtain data from tables that share a common field.

What Are JOINS in MySQL?

In MySQL, the JOIN statement is a technique of connecting data between several tables in a database based on the values of common fields in those tables. The same column name and data type are generally present in the tables being linked…