Data security is a crucial skill for any database developer, especially in today's world of cyberattacks, privacy regulations, and data breaches. But how can you demonstrate your data security skills in your database portfolio? Here are some tips to help you showcase your ability to protect, encrypt, and audit data in your database projects.
One of the first steps to show data security skills in your database portfolio is to use secure data sources for your projects. This means avoiding using sensitive or personal data that could expose you or your clients to legal or ethical risks. Instead, use public, anonymized, or fictional data sets that are relevant to your domain and objectives. Alternatively, you can use data masking or obfuscation techniques to hide or replace sensitive data with dummy values.
Another way to show data security skills in your database portfolio is to implement encryption methods for your data at rest and in transit. Encryption is the process of transforming data into an unreadable format using a secret key or algorithm. This prevents unauthorized access or modification of data by hackers, malicious insiders, or other threats. You can use various encryption methods for your database projects, such as symmetric or asymmetric encryption, hashing, or digital signatures. You can also use encryption tools or libraries that are compatible with your database platform and language.
A third way to show data security skills in your database portfolio is to apply access control policies for your data and database objects. Access control is the process of granting or denying permissions to users, roles, or groups based on their identity, role, or context. This ensures that only authorized users can access or manipulate data or database objects according to their needs and responsibilities. You can use various access control methods for your database projects, such as role-based access control (RBAC), discretionary access control (DAC), or mandatory access control (MAC).
A fourth way to show data security skills in your database portfolio is to incorporate auditing features for your data and database activities. Auditing is the process of recording and reviewing data or database events, such as queries, transactions, changes, errors, or anomalies. This helps you monitor and verify the integrity, performance, and compliance of your data and database systems. You can use various auditing features for your database projects, such as triggers, logs, audit tables, or audit tools.
It is prudent for data security skills in database portfolios to include an answer key of data variances and gaps as a Word or Adobe document. Having this document ready can serve as a top-level audit report for internal and external stakeholders.
A fifth way to show data security skills in your database portfolio is to follow best practices and standards for your data and database design, development, and deployment. This means adhering to the principles and guidelines that are widely accepted and recommended by experts and authorities in the field of data security. For example, you can follow the OWASP Top 10 Database Security Risks, the NIST Database Security Guidelines, or the ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management Standards. These best practices and standards can help you avoid common data security pitfalls and improve the quality and reliability of your database projects.
A sixth way to show data security skills in your database portfolio is to showcase your results and learning from your data and database projects. This means highlighting the data security goals, challenges, solutions, and outcomes of your projects in a clear and concise manner. You can use various formats and mediums to showcase your results and learning, such as reports, presentations, blogs, videos, or podcasts. You can also use metrics, diagrams, screenshots, or code snippets to illustrate your data security achievements and skills.
Data Security should definitely take top priority in today’s world which is largely data centric. However tracking the reads/intrusion is another thing that companies should always invest in. For one of our clients, we had not only enabled audit logs but then also customised them to an extent with a combination of triggers wherever necessary, for every such data that was considered super important by them and then the logs were recorded in a way that was easy to understand and track by the rightful owner. This is next level to security that lets one know if there was a breach of any kind that broke all the security built around into the data system. I strongly recommend this step to all my customers irrespective of the domain they work in.