data-security-primer

<!–– title: Data Security author: redshiftzero description: Keeping Data Safe 101 keywords: security, privacy ––>

Data Security Primer

Why this is important

• We have a lot of sensitive information
• Much of it is private data about individuals
• Legal agreements in place with partners to keep data safe

---

Security 101

• No such thing as absolute security
  • Consider your home
  • Can a dedicated attacker break in to your home?
  • Do you lock your door?
• Goal: Reduce risk of disclosure

---

What We Care About

• Confidentiality of project data
• Login credentials to the servers and databases (and places where these credentials are stored)

---

Common DSSG Challenges

• Avoid: Committing database credentials, API keys, SSH keys, etc. to Github repos
• Maintain awareness: IPython notebooks with exploratory data analysis with confidential data in them (talk with your team about this)

---

Commit with Confidence!

• Use git add filename to stage files individually
• Before you commit, git diff --cached to verify what you have staged is what you expect
• If you have files that you want to make sure that you do not commit, add them to your [.gitignore]{.title-ref}

---

Authentication

• Use unique, strong passwords
• Use a password manager e.g. KeePass, LastPass, 1Password
• Use two factor authentication when available (e.g. on Github)

---

Database: Don't

Don't commit the following:

from sqlalchemy import create_engine
engine = create_engine('postgresql://dbpro:ayylmao@dssg.example.com:5432/mydatabase')

---

Database: Do

Store these credentials in a separate file dbcreds.py:

host='dssg.example.com'
user='dbpro'
database='mydatabase'
password='ayylmao'

Add this file to your .gitignore to ensure that you don't commit it

---

You can commit an example file to your repo dbcreds.example:

host=''
user=''
database=''
password=''

---

Database: Do

import dbcreds

engine = sqlalchemy.create_engine(('postgresql://{conf.user}:'
'{conf.password}@{conf.host}:5432/{conf.database}').format(
conf=dbcreds))

---

Database: Do

Commit an even simpler config file `dbcreds.py`:

config = {'sqlalchemy.url': 'postgres://dbpro:ayylmao@dssg.example.com/mydatabase'}

And then connect:

import sqlalchemy
from dbcreds import config

engine = sqlalchemy.engine_from_config(config)

---

Beyond Content

• Consider whether your project partner would want the names of tables disclosed
• Example: https://github.com/dssg/police-eis/blob/master/example_officer_config.yaml

---

Cleaning Repos

• Search for passwords/data leaks in a folder: https://github.com/dssg/repo-scraper
• Instead of git-filter-branch to remove secret things from your git repository: https://github.com/rtyley/bfg-repo-cleaner

---

Mistakes Happen

• Avoid cleaning by not putting sensitive data in your repos

---

Web Applications

If you end up creating a web application, be aware of security best practices:

• OWASP Secure Coding Practices: https://www.owasp.org/images/0/08/OWASP_SCP_Quick_Reference_Guide_v2.pdf