A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
I’ve written previously about auditing or cracking SQL Server login passwords either online (inside the instance itself) or offline (exporting the hashes and using a specialized cracking tool).
Last week, Microsoft’s Pieter Vanhove published a blog post that covers What’s new in SQL Server 2025 security.
This is one of the few instances in which I’d prefer things be slower in the database.
Comments closedAaron Merrill shares some news:
It’s been almost 3 months since we announced OneLake security at FabCon 2025 in Las Vegas, and while the interest has not slowed down, we’ve also been working behind the scenes to improve the feature and address your feedback. In this blog post, we’ll go through some of the latest updates on OneLake security including further support for OneLake shortcuts, improved RLS authoring, and updated permissions to manage OneLake security.
Read on to see what has changed.
Comments closedKristina Mishra takes us through troubleshooting a problem:
Ah, you’ve setup a deployment pipeline and let your people know it’s ready for them to do the thing. Everything looks fine on your end, so you shoot off a message to the group and go about your busy day. (Nevermind your Test environment was set up 4 months ago, Production 3 days ago, and Development was replaced 2 months ago with a new Development environment because your region changed.) You’ve added all the permission groups to each environment and added your “contributors” as Admin to the deployment pipeline (no comment), so everything should be grand.
Famous last words, indeed.
Comments closedOscar Martinez lays out the risks:
Data exfiltration is the act of moving sensitive data outside a trusted environment without authorisation. In the context of Power Query (the data transformation engine behind Excel, Power BI, dataflows, etc.), this means an insider could use a Power Query script to siphon data from secure sources (like databases) out to an external destination. Microsoft defines data exfiltration as the movement of sensitive business data outside a trusted boundary, whether intentionally or unintentionally.^1
Click through to learn more about what is possible, as well as practical tips on how to reduce this risk.
Comments closedDavid Seis digs into the Restore-DbaDatabase cmdlet:
In this blog post, we will audit the dbatools command Restore-DbaDatabase. I will test, review, and evaluate the script based on a series of identical steps. Our goal is to provide insights, warnings, and recommendations to help you use this script effectively and safely. Restore-DbaDatabase is powerful tool to automate the restore of any database, and it works well in automated solutions such as daily refreshes or weekly refreshes of production to a lower environment.
David’s blog post takes a look at the cmdlet’s functionality, but also thinking about it from a security perspective.
Comments closedAlex Woodie reports on a vulnerability:
The Microsoft Copilot vulnerability, dubbed EchoLeak, was listed as CVE-2025-32711 in the NIST’s National Vulnerability Database, which gave the flaw a severity score of 9.3. According to Aim Labs, which discovered EchoLeak and shared its research with the world last week, the “zero-click” flaw could “allow attackers to automatically exfiltrate sensitive and proprietary information from M365 Copilot context, without the user’s awareness, or relying on any specific victim behavior.” Microsoft patched the flaw the following day.
The blog post linked above is pretty interesting. Microsoft has patched the vulnerability, so this particular attack vector shouldn’t be an issue. But it will certainly open up the doors for more fun ways of exploiting generative AI-based services.
Comments closedSoheil Bakhshi continues a series:
Now, in the third and final part of this blog series, we focus on two important areas that are often overlooked:
- What happens when Microsoft Purview sensitivity labels are applied to a report
- How to refine admin portal settings to better control guest users’ access to Fabric
Click through for the conclusion of this series.
Comments closedYael Biss doesn’t want people walking off with the data:
As data volume and complexity soar, protecting sensitive information has become non-negotiable. With the latest enhancements to Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Policies in Microsoft Fabric, organizations now have the power to proactively secure their data in Onelake.
Whether you’re just getting started or looking to take your data governance to the next level, following proven best practices will maximize your security, compliance, and productivity.
Click through for several tips on how to use Microsoft Purview DLP in Fabric. One of those tips ought to be “Get a side hustle so you can afford both Purview and Fabric.”
Comments closedWith this update, Azure Mirrored Databricks Catalog items can now be enabled with OneLake security. Security at the table, column, or row level can be defined directly in each item, allowing access to be controlled at a granular level. This allows security to be defined directly over the data mirrored into OneLake so it can be securely used by downstream sources such as lakehouses, notebooks, or semantic models.
Read on to see what to do in order to make use of this. It is, of course, currently in preview.
Comments closedAaron Merrill explains how OneLake security works when you introduce shortcuts:
OneLake allows for security to be defined once and enforced consistently across Microsoft Fabric. One of its standout features is its ability to work seamlessly with shortcuts, offering users the flexibility to access and organize data from different locations while maintaining robust security controls. In this blog post, we will look at how OneLake security is integrated with shortcuts, explain the distinction between passthrough and delegated auth modes for shortcuts, and look at an example use case.
Read on for an overview of OneLake shortcuts, as well as different security models around them.
Comments closed