Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Authorization as a hedge against mistakes
We generally think of authentication and authorization as a mechanism to prevent inten-
tional access to our data by nefarious actors. However, authorization can also be a powerful
insurance policy against unintentional mistakes by well-intentioned people. In the preced-
ing example, the data analytics team did not intend to do any harm, but without authoriza-
tion in place, that pesky cat would have unwittingly caused data loss.
While the odds of a feline posterior producing a perfectly-formed CQL query are quite
long, mistakes do happen. Using authorization to give each user the minimum level of ac-
cess they strictly need, we can reduce the chance of a mistake turning into an emergency.
Of course, authentication and authorization are also an important tool to secure your data
from those seeking unauthorized access. As it turns out, these are only part of the entire se-
curity picture; we also need to make sure our data is secure on disk and in transit.
