Multilevel Database Decomposition Framework

The Multilevel Database Decomposition Framework is a strategy to enhance system robustness and minimize the impact of data breaches. The framework prioritizes robustness against cyber threats over minimizing data redundancy by decomposing a database into smaller ones to restrict user access according to the least privilege principle. For this purpose, each database the decomposition produces is uniquely associated with a set of users and the decomposition ensures that each user can access all and only the data his/her operations need. This minimizes the data a user can access and the impact of an impersonation attack. To prevent the spreading of an intrusion across the databases it produces, the framework supports alternative allocation strategies that map the databases onto distinct virtual or physical entities according to the robustness of interest. This flexibility in allocation management ultimately reinforces defenses against evolving cyber threats and it is the main advantage of the deposition. As a counterpart of better robustness, some tables will be replicated across the databases the de composition returns and their updates should be properly replicated to prevent inconsistencies among copies of a table in distinct databases. We present a performance analysis to evaluate the overhead of each allocation. This offers insights into how the framework can satisfy distinct security requirements. Weuse these results to evaluate the effectiveness of the framework for healthcare applications.