Re: HIPPA (was Re: Anyone know ...)

Karsten Hilbert wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 09, 2007 at 08:08:11AM -0500, Kenneth Downs wrote:
>
>
>> First, security is defined directly in terms of tables, it is not
>> arbitrated by code. The "public" group has SELECT access to the
>> articles table and the schedules tables, that's it. If a person figures
>> out how our links work and tries to access the "claims" table it will
>> simply come up blank (and we get an email).
>>
> How ?
>
> Karsten
>

If a user has not logged in, that is, if they are an anonymous visitor,
the web framework will connect to the database as the default "public"
user. Our system is deny-by-default, so this user cannot actually read
from any table unless specifically granted permission. In the case
being discussed, the public user is given SELECT permission on some
columns of the insurance carriers table, and on the schedules table.

The column-level security is important, as you don't want anybody seeing
the provider id!

If the user figures out our URL scheme, they might try something like
"?gp_page=patients" and say "Wow I'm clever I'm going to look at the
patients table", except that the public user has no privilege on the
table. The db server will throw a permission denied error.