What are the top database security best practices for protecting personally identifiable information (PII)?

1 Encrypt your data

One of the most basic and effective ways to protect PII is to encrypt your data, both at rest and in transit. Encryption is the process of transforming data into a coded form that can only be read by authorized parties who have the decryption key. Encryption helps to prevent hackers, malicious insiders, or third-party vendors from accessing or stealing your data, even if they breach your network or physical security. You should use strong encryption algorithms and protocols, such as AES-256 or SSL/TLS, and store your encryption keys securely and separately from your data.

2 Implement access control

Another important database security best practice is to implement access control, which is the process of granting or denying permissions to users, roles, or groups based on their identity, authentication, and authorization. Access control helps to ensure that only authorized and legitimate users can access, modify, or delete PII, and that they can only perform actions that are necessary and appropriate for their job function. You should use the principle of least privilege, which means giving users the minimum level of access required to perform their tasks, and revoke or review access regularly. You should also use strong passwords, multi-factor authentication, and audit logs to monitor and track user activity.

3 Apply data masking

Data masking is another database security best practice that can help to protect PII, especially in non-production environments, such as testing, development, or analytics. Data masking is the process of replacing sensitive data with fictitious or anonymized data that preserves the format and functionality of the original data, but does not reveal its true value. Data masking helps to reduce the risk of exposing PII to unauthorized or unnecessary parties, such as developers, testers, analysts, or external contractors, who may not need to see the real data for their work. You should use data masking tools or techniques, such as substitution, shuffling, or generalization, to mask your data before transferring or sharing it.

4 Update your software

Keeping your software up to date is another database security best practice that can help to protect PII from potential vulnerabilities or exploits. Software updates are patches or fixes that address bugs, errors, or security issues in your database software or applications. Software updates help to improve the performance, functionality, and security of your software, and prevent hackers from exploiting known or unknown flaws or loopholes. You should regularly check for and install software updates from your vendor or provider, and test them for compatibility and stability before deploying them to your production environment.

5 Backup and restore your data

Finally, backing up and restoring your data is a database security best practice that can help to protect PII from accidental or intentional loss, corruption, or damage. Backing up your data is the process of creating and storing copies of your data in a separate location or medium, such as a cloud service, an external drive, or a tape. Restoring your data is the process of recovering and restoring your data from your backup in case of a disaster, such as a hardware failure, a natural calamity, a ransomware attack, or a human error. Backing up and restoring your data helps to ensure the availability, integrity, and continuity of your data, and minimize the impact and cost of a data breach or loss. You should backup your data frequently and regularly, and test your restore capabilities and procedures.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?