How secure is the SRB?
The SRB is quite secure. No computer system is perfectly secure, but the SRB provides a reasonable level of security while still providing convenience features and high performance. The Encrypt1 challenge/response is secure against network eavesdropping, while the use of user passwords is convenient and straight-forward for both users and administrators. Placing user passwords into files on host systems is a convenience, although if a host is compromised, those files could be read and the user’s SRB identity assumed. GSI is also secure against network eavesdropping and somewhat less vulnerable against compromised hosts as only temporary delegation certificates are stored in files. Generally, the SRB is as secure as the DBMS used to store the MCAT and the physical resources used to store the data. User identity is as secure as the client host system. Since the SRB server runs as a non-root user, it does not present a vulnerability to the OS if compromised. This is a big advantage over s
