What is Basel II

The Basel Capital Accord Basel II a set of international banking standards based on three mutually reinforcing pillars, issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in June 2004. It’s an improvement of the Basel I Accord, and it introduces a new approach to data management

Pillar 1 – minimum capital requirements – defines the minimum capital required to cover the risks that the bank might encounter. To put it simply – the financial institutions are required to have enough cash to cover potential risks.

What is FERPA

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. It gives students and their parents the right to access their education records, request to amend, and control over the record disclosure

The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, Sarbanes–Oxley, Sarbox, or SOX is a US federal law “written by lawyers for lawyers”. It’s a regulation created to improve the quality and integrity of financial reporting, and ensure the financial and business information is factual and accurate.

What is GLBA

The Gramm – Leach – Bliley Act (GLBA) was enacted in 1999. Its purpose is to protect consumer financial privacy. In order to meet GLBA compliance requirements, the financial organizations must inform their customers about the company’s information sharing and privacy practices. Customers must be given and explained their right to opt out (to say “no”) – if they don’t want their financial information shared with certain third parties

What is PCI?

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS, or just PCI) is an information security standard that protects cardholder and card payment information. The PCI DSS general requirements are designed to ensure a secure, monitored network, protect cardholder and transaction data, provide vulnerability management, strong access control measures, and maintain an information security policy

What is SOX

The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, Sarbanes–Oxley, Sarbox, or SOX is a regulation created to improve the quality and integrity of financial reporting. It addresses audits, financial reporting and disclosure, conflicts of interest, and corporate governance, so financial and business information is factual and accurate. Its purpose is to avoid accounting scandals like the ones in 1990s stock market.

Configuring a safe and secure environment for your SQL Server instance is a complex task. SQL Server security must be set on the SQL Server instance, operating system, firewall, antivirus program, etc. But failing to set up security properly can bring a lot of headaches and even irreversible damage

It’s important sometimes to know and have evidence of who-saw-what on specific SQL Server instances and databases. This can be a requirement you have to provide (e.g. to comply with HIPAA regulations) and there are several ways to ensure the capture of that information

In order to capture who-saw-what in SQL Server, it is important to know what was executed on the server. Even though ApexSQL Log (a transaction log reader) and ApexSQL Trigger (trigger-based auditing tool) provide partial information, in order to get the full details on who saw what, ApexSQL Audit is the perfect tool for the job.