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Category: Security

A Primer on Postgres Database Security

Published 2023-07-28 by Kevin Feasel

Murtaza Umair provides guidance:

Keeping your database up to date with the latest PostgreSQL release is vital in maintaining the security of your database. Once every year, PostgreSQL comes out with a new release, which includes new features, security enhancements, and performance improvements. Each major release is supported for five years, during which PostgreSQL releases quarterly minor updates to fix bugs and patch security issues. The schedule for new updates and more information is given on PostgreSQL’s website, at https://www.postgresql.org/developer/roadmap/. 

Nothing in this is earth-shattering but it is a solid overview.

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Testing Multi-User PBI Row-Level Security in Excel

Published 2023-07-27 by Kevin Feasel

Gilbert Quevauvilliers performs a test:

I have been doing a fair amount of work on Row Level Security (RLS) where the requirements were quite complex to implement.

Once I had completed the implementation of RLS there were two outstanding items I needed to test.

  1. Make sure that the users are only viewing the data they should see.
  2. Ensure that the performance of a selected user is still as fast as possible.

I would like to mention that this certainly can be done using DAX studio to get the query performance stats, I wanted to test this using Excel.

Gilbert had to do a fair amount here, but there’s a nice walkthrough indicating how to do it all.

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Power BI Dataset Data Source Credential Options

Published 2023-07-25 by Kevin Feasel

Angela Henry puts together a list:

If we are using enterprise-wide datasets, we don’t want Power BI datasets owned by individuals; we want them to be owned by a Service Principle so they aren’t relying on specific individuals when things go sideways (and because we all want to go on vacation at some point). However, it’s not always clear on what credentials will actually be used for our data sources in our datasets when using a Service Principle. In a previous post, I talked about how to set up a service principle to take over a dataset when using data gateways, but one of the pre-requisites I listed was that your data sources needed to be configured with appropriate credentials. That’s where this post comes in.

You essentially have three options for data source credentials, depending on your data source type.

Click through for that list of three options, as well as the trade-offs inherent in each.

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TDE and Credential Rotation for Arc SQL Managed Instance

Published 2023-07-20 by Kevin Feasel

Nikita Takru announces a new public preview:

We are thrilled to announce the Public Preview of Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) and Service-Managed Credential Rotation for Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instance. With a strong focus on data security and management, this release introduces cutting-edge features that ensure your sensitive information is protected.  

Click through for more details, particularly on automating credential rotation.

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CREATEROLE in Postgres

Published 2023-07-20 by Kevin Feasel

Muhammad Ali creates a role:

PostgreSQL is a robust open-source relational database management system that provides a wide range of capabilities to guarantee safe and effective data administration. One such privilege is the CREATEROLE privilege, which is vital to PostgreSQL database management of users and roles. We will examine the nuances of the CREATEROLE privilege, its use, and how it affects user administration in this blog post. So let’s investigate this privilege and comprehend PostgreSQL’s use of it.

Click through to see how this privilege works and what has changed in different versions of Postgres.

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Finding Orphaned Users in SQL Server

Published 2023-07-20 by Kevin Feasel

Kenneth Fisher needs more factory workers:

When you create a user (a database principal) you have several options on what the user is associated with (usually a login/server principal), or it might not be associated with anything at all (created without a login). And a common problem is when that object you’ve associated your user with is no longer available and you’ve got an orphan.

Click through to see how Kenneth finds them all and has them working in his wallet-making factories. Kenneth is an inspiration to us all.

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Migrating Column-Level Encryption to Azure SQL MI

Published 2023-07-19 by Kevin Feasel

Keshav Kiran performs a migration:

One of our customers came up with a requirement where they wanted to Migrate On-prem Database to Azure SQL Managed instance. The databases had traditional column level encryption enabled.

He has restored the database on the SQL Managed instance by Backup/Restore approach. Now when he was trying to read the encrypted column on the destination database, It was showing NULL values after decryption.

Read on for the solution.

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Taking Over a Power BI Dataset with a Service Principal

Published 2023-07-18 by Kevin Feasel

Angela Henry takes it out of the user’s hands:

A little background for those new to using Power BI and Data Gateways. If the data source for your Power BI dataset lives on-prem or behind a private endpoint, you will need a Data Gateway to access the data. If you want to keep your data fresh (either using Direct Query or Import mode), but don’t want to rely on a specific user’s credentials (because we all want to go on vacation at some point), you will need to use a service principal for authentication.

Read on for the step-by-step instructions on how to do this.

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