I am an experienced database administrator using DB2 on mainframe for 25 years and "discovered" Firebird just now and enjoyed it. I developed a software and was thinking of using Firebird to lower the customer expenses, since it is free of cost. Well, executing some security tests I found that one database copied from one server can be opened by another server using SYSDBA user. It is not acceptable (in my point of view), since customer data can be exposed to undesirable people and my database metadata could be acessed by unauthorized people.
I've seen other posts saying that this kind of security must be implemented at OS level protecting the DB file to be copied. Some other posts say that encryption is the solution. I dont't agree with both solutions. If I deliver my software, the files are not in my control and it can be copied and opened on other FB server using SYSDBA user. Encryption is not a solution too, since a FB server can open it and extract the data. I think the solution would be saving the SYSDBA password inside the database and encrypting it. What do you think?
