I have an IIS hosted WCF Service that uses SSL encryption. This service makes requests to a SQL Server 2014 database instance. When I make a call to the service the response message is encrypted. So, the connection between the client (browser) and the service is secure. I also want the connection between the service and the SQL Server 2014 database to be secure.
This is where my question comes in. I am not exactly sure how to do this. I read the following article Enable Encrypted Connections to the Database Engine and I was able to successfully add the certificate to the SQL server database engine and changed the Force Encryption flag to True. But now I am a bit confused as to whether I want to configure the server to accept encrypted connections or the client to request encrypted connections. Based on the scenario I presented above it seems I want the client to request encrypted connections from the SQL Server DB correct? I guess one reason I am confused is because this is ALL happening on my development machine. SQL Server is being hosted there as is the IIS Service.
If someone with experience could maybe clarify that for me I would greatly appreciate it.
If you haven't restarted the service, then do so to complete the configuration change. It sounds like you applied the change correctly and using a domain or public CA certificate will prevent a man in the middle attack. To verify that the connections are secure, you can use a DMV named sys.dm_exec_connection which should display true for the encrypt_option for all sessions, as below:
select session_id, net_transport, encrypt_option from sys.dm_exec_connections
I'm not certain that connections from the host to SQL Server will be encrypted by SSL\TLS since they would be using the shared memory protocol and Windows manages the security of shared memory.
Related
I am investigating the use of SSL to ensure security when performing remote software updates to embedded systems. This means that I would like to ensure that only specific client machines may communicate with the embedded server system.
I understand that server certificates authenticate the identity of the server and client certificates authenticate the identity of the client and this prevents man in the middle attacks.
What I would like to know is if client certificates can be used in such a way that only clients with specific certificates, compatible with the server, can communicate with the server.
My interpretation so far from reading up on this is that that certificates are used to ensure that either client or server are who they say they are. Not to restrict access to specific clients. Is this correct?
If someone could help clarify this, and provide some pointers, I'd be grateful.
Thanks
I want to force all external connections to be encrypted using SSL, essentially I want to encrypt only one of the network interfaces.
This article comes about as close to my answer as I can get:
http://basitaalishan.com/2012/07/16/encrypting-connections-to-sql-server/
However, it seems to me that either all connections are forced to use encryption or all connections may be able to not use encryption at all. I want all external connections to be encrypted (no choice) and all internal connections (behind the firewall) to not be encrypted.
I need to encrypt both SQL 2005 and 2008R2. Both are running on Windows 2008 Std
Can this be done at all?
You could use a SSL wrapper/proxy like stunnel, then set the firewall to allow external connections only to the port where said SSL wrapper runs.
We are setting up replication between RavenDB instances running in server mode. The instances are in different availability zones so we need a secure connection between the servers. According this this post SSL is not supported in server mode but
should be easy to add
Is there an extensibility point in the API where SSL support can be plugged in?
The API doesn't have any place for this currently, but I'm sure it would be a welcome contribution if you were so inclined to write this and submit a pull request. The underlying server is just a System.Net.HttpListener, which can be wired for ssl.
Your entry point would be at Raven.Database.Server.HttpServer.StartListening()
You would want the SSL certificate to be as easy to configure as the hostname or port. The cert itself should probably be pulled in from the Windows certificate store.
I'm running a Rails app on Heroku's Cedar stack.
I need to access a remote Windows Server (over the internet, not in a LAN) to query a SQL Server database.
First, I used TinyTDS to access the DB but configuring it on Heroku is really painful.
Secondly, I had made a dynamic web page on the IIS remote server and I was making http get requests to retrieve data. But it's not secure.
I need a good and secure solution (ssh tunnel?).
Any help appreciated.
There's nothing wrong with using HTTP requests to interface between the two. If you want encryption, just use HTTPS. If it's just for internal use then you don't need to buy an SSL certificate, you can generate one yourself.
I thank you in advance for sharing your knowledge. Here is my question:
By default, SQL Azure connections are encrypted. so what is the significance of checking the 'encrypt connection' checkbox in the connection properties while connecting to SQL Azure from SSMS? Does it make any difference?
Paras,
When the client library first attempts a connection to SQL Server / SQL Azure, it sends an initial connection request. Consider this a "pre-pre-connection" request. At this point the client does not know if SSL/Encryption is required and waits an answer from SQL Server/SQL Azure to determine if SSL is indeed required throughout the session (not just the login sequence, the entire connection session). A bit is set on the response indicating so. Then the client library disconnects and reconnects armed with this information.
Consider a proxy sitting between the client and SQL Azure (or SQL Server). The client talks to the proxy, and the proxy talks to SQL Azure/Sql Server. If you do not force the encryption bit on the client, you leave it to the proxy to encrypt or not the session. The proxy could encrypt the connection on the backend (it would have to for SQL Azure) but not on the client-side of the connection, hence accessing all your sensitive data. So checking the encryption box bypasses the "pre-pre-connection" request which prevents any proxy from turning off the encryption bit in question on the client side of the proxy, hence avoiding the man-in-the-middle attack.
Hopefully that makes sense... :) If you download Wireshark and watch what happens with the pre-pre-login packets, you will see what I mean. Checking the box changes the pre-login handshake mechanism to avoid the man-in-the-middle attack I described.