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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
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.
Configuring Label-Based Access Control
The general procedure involves a few SQL-based tasks that define precise but flexible database security objects.

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.
    - 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.
      - Configuring Label-Based Access Control
        The general procedure involves a few SQL-based tasks that define precise but flexible database security objects.
      - How security labels control access
        Security labels rely on security label components to store information about the classification of data and about which users have access authority.
      - DBSECADM role in LBAC
        The database security administrator role (DBSECADM) is required to create and maintain label-based access control security objects.
      - Security label components
        Security label components are security objects for defining security policies. The elements of these components are used to define security labels, which control access to protected tables.
      - Security policies
        Security policies are database objects that you create and use to protect tables from unauthorized access.
      - Security labels
        Security labels are objects applied to rows and columns in order to protect these data, and granted to users to give them access to protected data.
      - Protecting Rows and Columns
        Protect rows and columns by associating them with security objects by including clauses in the CREATE TABLE and ALTER TABLE statements.
      - Exemptions
        Exemptions modify security credentials of users by disabling one or more of the IDSLBACRULES for a component type in a security policy.
      - Maintaining a label-based access-control implementation
        Optimizing database performance can require adjusting the values of configuration parameters for security policies and user credentials.
      - HCL Informix® Security Considerations
        The wide range of Informix® capabilities requires certain precautions and planning to ensure protected tables can be accessed appropriately.
      - LBAC and other HCL Informix® features
        Informix® has non-security functionality that operates seamlessly with label-based access control.
  - Auditing data security

Configuring label-based access control

The general procedure involves a few SQL-based tasks that define precise but flexible database security objects.

Before you begin

Before you implement label-based access control (LBAC), you must identify the data that must to be protected, who can access that data, and what tables cannot be protected.

About this task

The following list outlines the major tasks in setting up a basic implementation with Informix®:

Procedure

The database server administrator (DBSA) grants the DBSECADM role.
The DBSECADM defines the security objects:
1. Creates security label components to define the attributes of sensitive data and the corresponding attributes of users who can have read access or write access to this data.
2. Creates security policies to reflect the organization's restrictions about who can access protected data.
3. Creates security labels for the security policies.
4. Grants security labels to users who must have access to the protected data.
5. To protect new tables: Uses the CREATE TABLE statement with the SECURITY POLICY clause and specifies how security objects protect data at the row level, column level, or at both levels.
6. To protect existing tables: Uses the ALTER TABLE statement with the ADD SECURITY POLICY clause and specifies how security objects protect data at the row level, column level, or at both levels.

Tables to exclude from LBAC protection

What to do next

LBAC does not protect the following categories of tables:

virtual-table interface (VTI) tables
tables with virtual-index interface (VII)
temporary (TEMP) tables
typed tables
hierarchical tables