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Security
You can secure your Informix® database server and the data that is stored in your Informix databases. You can encrypt data, secure connections, control user privileges and access, and audit data security.
Security in HCL Informix®
The Informix® Security Guide documents methods for keeping your data secure by preventing unauthorized viewing and altering of data or database objects, including how to use the secure-auditing facility of the database server.
Securing data
Discretionary access control
Discretionary access control verifies whether the user who is attempting to perform an operation has been granted the required privileges to perform that operation.
User roles
A role is a work-task classification, such as payroll or payroll manager. Each defined role has privileges on the local database object granted to the role. You use the CREATE ROLE statement to define a role.

Security
You can secure your Informix® database server and the data that is stored in your Informix databases. You can encrypt data, secure connections, control user privileges and access, and audit data security.
- Security in HCL Informix®
  The Informix® Security Guide documents methods for keeping your data secure by preventing unauthorized viewing and altering of data or database objects, including how to use the secure-auditing facility of the database server.
  - Securing data
    - HCL Informix® directory security
      utilities and product directories are secure by default.
    - Network data encryption
      Use network encryption to encrypt data transmitted between server and client, and between server and other server.
    - Column-level encryption
      You can use column-level encryption to store sensitive data in an encrypted format. After encrypting sensitive data, such as credit card numbers, only users who can provide a secret password can decrypt the data.
    - Connection security
      You can administer the security of the connections to the database server by using authentication and authorization processes.
    - Discretionary access control
      Discretionary access control verifies whether the user who is attempting to perform an operation has been granted the required privileges to perform that operation.
      - User roles
        A role is a work-task classification, such as payroll or payroll manager. Each defined role has privileges on the local database object granted to the role. You use the CREATE ROLE statement to define a role.
        Role separation
        Default roles
        An administrator can define a default role to assign to individual users or to the PUBLIC group for a particular database.
        Granting privileges for a default role
      - Setting permission to create databases
        Use the DBCREATE_PERMISSION configuration parameter to give specified users permission to create databases and thus prevent other users from creating databases.
      - Security for external routines (UDRs)
        External routines with shared libraries that are outside the database server can be security risks. External routines include user-defined routines (UDRs) and the routines in DataBlade® modules.
      - Enabling non-DBSA users to view SQL statements in an active session
        You can enable non-database server administrator (DBSA) users to view SQL statements in an active session.
    - Label-Based Access Control
      You can use label-based access control (LBAC), an implementation of multi-level security (MLS), to control who has read access and who has write access to individual rows and columns of data.
  - Auditing data security

User roles

A role is a work-task classification, such as payroll or payroll manager. Each defined role has privileges on the local database object granted to the role. You use the CREATE ROLE statement to define a role.

After you create a role, use the GRANT statement to grant privileges to one or more users associated with the role name.

When a role is granted to a user, the role grantor or the role grantee (user) must use the SET ROLE statement to activate the role. Only then does the user have the privileges of the role.

Important: The scope of a role's privileges is the current database only. When the SET ROLE statement is run, the role is set in the current database only. As a security precaution, a user with role privileges cannot access tables on a remote computer through a view, trigger, or programmed procedure.

For more information about creating and using roles, see the Informix® Guide to SQL: Syntax.