topic Re: SAS - row level auditing in Administration and Deployment

SAS - row level auditing

Reeza — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 20:27:12 GMT

Is there anyway to set up row level auditing for data sets with just Base SAS running on a local desktop with no internet connection (can connect if needed, under certain conditions but no sustained access)?

I have SAS EG & Studio and have administrator rights to the machine so I can install other applications if necessary. We are migrating to a server soon with row level auditing options.

Basically, I'm getting some sensitive data that I need to really secure. We're upgrading to server tech, but that won't be fully functional until November but I'm receiving the data in August. So I can either delay my project two to three months or find a way to ensure it's secure before then.

Re: SAS - row level auditing

LinusH — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 05:29:35 GMT

Absolutely:
http://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=lrcon&docsetTarget=n0ndg2uekz7qkbn1caoki2hzqx8l.htm&docsetVersion=9.4&locale=en
That fixes the audit. I guess that security can be maintained by old school file level access rights. Are you implying that multiple users will use this desktop?

Re: SAS - row level auditing

Reeza — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 15:51:37 GMT

Unfortunately I also need read level auditing. Ie did someone look up their spouse/ex/colleague when they shouldn't have.

Re: SAS - row level auditing

boemskats — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 21:08:13 GMT

If I was in your situation my workaround would probably be to load the data into PostgreSQL and configure it with something like the pgaudit extension. Not ideal & obviously a longshot, but potentially doable with ODBC (unless you just happen to have access to postgres licensed).

Sorry to not have a better solution for you. I'm curious, what the row level auditing options will be once you've moved to server SAS?

Nik

Re: SAS - row level auditing

LinusH — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 11:28:58 GMT

I don't think that you can have this OOTB with SAS or probably not with many other vendors as well. I know that in SAS SPD Server you can have a query log, but that will be in text log format.
Also, queries that doesn't contain any narrow filters, how to value those?
So hard to solve on data file level I would say, feasable at an application level.

Re: SAS - row level auditing

JuanS_OCS — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 13:47:03 GMT

Hello @Reeza,

yours is a great question. SAS Base data is just a sequential file. So not much to be done. SAS Federation Server is killing flies with a cannon.

So far I relate the most to the answer provided by @boemskats. Put the data in a small free database that will allow auditing (mostly all) (psql is one option, mysql could be another, or msql express), and then allow access to the data only through database. Of course, that means a minimum of an ODBC connection. The most flexible, cheaper and much quicker than a SAS Federation Server or some other complex solution.

Other option you might want to consider: both Windows and Linux both can offer a simple level of auditing, for reads, writes, creation, deletion, etc. But, still, on a file level, not row level 😕 I can still wish for more.

Re: SAS - row level auditing

Reeza — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 15:02:38 GMT

Thanks everyone. I'll roll out a open source server on the machine for now and lock it down that way.

We're going to have either an Oracle or SQL server with the data and use SAS via ODBC connections to the DB which should give us the row level auditing I need. That's what my IT team is saying at least, that's not my role fortunately 🙂