The Power of Admins

Imagine you’ve got a bank, and your job is to secure that bank.

Secure from who? Well, bad guys for one. Then there are the people who work at the bank, can’t have them stealing other people’s money either. There is Bob, Ted, Tina, and Jenny who work at the bank – and oh, yes God. God works at your bank. Let’s call God “Adminstrator” at our bank. Now you can see a problem information security folks face all the time.

As is often the case, there are many administrators in a given system. Sometimes work can’t be done if an employee is not an admin. Ever had to store information in a database that the DBA is not supposed to read or have access to?

I’ve heard many opinions and perspectives – and this is really a broad question to a problem that often requires a specific answer. It’s a very common issue, but the question remains, how much do you trust administrators?