Microsoft to enhance SQL 2005 security features

Security | Microsoft will add some security-enhancing tools to the SQL 2005 database by the end of this year.

They include code detection tools prefix and PREfast, both of which are made by Microsoft Labs to detect common vulnerabilities, such as memory overruns. Prefix is responsible for detecting the code before the database is established, while PREfast is responsible for detecting the compiled code.

Detlef Echert, Microsoft's chief Security Advisor for Europe, said it was a strategy to develop security awareness for platform developers. The security of the default option is especially important when the system design does not have password-protected functionality. To write unsafe code, a developer must pass several steps to succeed.

Another security enhancement is the support for more cryptographic protocols, which can encrypt specific areas rather than the entire database. Echert that this feature is particularly applicable to the medical system, because different users should have different permissions to use.