PFI-TT: Systematic Auditing of Database Activity

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is to improve detection of data breaches involving databases. A data breach can be extremely damaging to an organization; It may take months to detect the problem, further exacerbating the damage. Moreover, an attacker may take control of the computer system and disable its security and/or cover their tracks, delaying or avoiding detection. There are currently no software tools that address these problems for databases. This PFI project will contribute to the scientific understanding of database security analysis. The proposed project involves development of prototype software that uses digital forensic techniques to perform an automated audit of database storage to detect data integrity and compliance threats. Leveraging previous NSF-funded academic research, the proposed software can detect data breaches that are not detectable by current methods, thereby frustrating attempts by attackers to cause damage. Because the proposed technology is an automated tool, data breaches are detected very quickly. Moreover, by performing platform-agnostic forensic analysis, this software can be used to examine any data managed by a conventional, relational database management system. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.