10 Best Practices to Secure Your Data in Snowflake

Imagine a high-tech manufacturing company storing years of crucial R&D data, product designs, and supply chain information in Snowflake. A data breach could not only result in financial losses but also irreparable damage to the company’s competitive edge and reputation. This is the harsh reality businesses face today.

In fact, 90% of businesses quote that cloud security is one of the most vital determinants of the success of a cloud strategy^[i].

Snowflake, while offering unparalleled power and flexibility, demands equally robust security measures.

This blog post discusses the best practices to secure your Snowflake instance, ensuring your data remains protected from unauthorized access and breaches.

How to Secure Your Data in Snowflake: Top 10 Best Practices

1. Network Security

Network security is the foundation of protecting your Snowflake data. It’s essential to ensure that your network connections to Snowflake are secure and only accessible by trusted sources. This involves creating a secure network architecture that limits access points, monitors traffic, and employs robust protection mechanisms against external threats.

By leveraging private connections, implementing strict access controls, and continuously monitoring network activity, you can create a resilient defense against cyber threats.

Best Practices:

• Private Connectivity: Use private connectivity options like Azure Private Link, AWS PrivateLink, or Google Cloud Private Service Connect to establish a secure connection between your Snowflake instance and your network.
• IP Whitelisting: Restrict access to your Snowflake account by whitelisting specific IP addresses, ensuring only trusted sources can connect.
• Network Policies: Implement network policies to control which IP addresses can access your Snowflake instance and from which regions they can connect.

2. Identity and Access Management

Identity and access management (IAM) is crucial for controlling who has access to your Snowflake resources. It ensures that only authorized users can access and manage your data, helping to prevent unauthorized access and potential data breaches.

In effective IAM, you need to define roles and permissions that align with the principle of least privilege. It will ensure that users only have the access they need. This minimizes the risk of accidental or malicious data exposure.

Best Practices:

• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Assign roles based on the principle of least privilege, ensuring users only have access to the resources they need to perform their job functions.
• Account-Level Security: Use Snowflake’s built-in features to manage and monitor account-level security settings, including password policies and session timeout settings.

3. Managing Users and Roles

Proper management of users and roles is essential for maintaining a secure environment. This includes ensuring that users are granted appropriate permissions and that roles are correctly defined. Effective user and role management prevents unauthorized access and helps maintain a secure and compliant environment.

Best Practices:

• User Provisioning: Implement automated user provisioning processes to ensure new users are added securely and with appropriate permissions.
• Role Hierarchies: Create role hierarchies to simplify permission management and ensure users inherit the correct access levels.

4. Authentication and Single Sign-On (SSO)

Authentication and Single Sign-On (SSO) streamline and secure the process of verifying user identities, reducing the risk of unauthorized access. Centralized authentication management ensures that user credentials are protected and that access is granted only to verified users.

Best Practices:

• SSO Integration: Integrate Snowflake with your organization’s SSO provider to centralize authentication and reduce the risk of credential theft.
• Strong Authentication Methods: Encourage the use of strong, unique passwords and regularly update authentication credentials.

5. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) enhances security by requiring multiple forms of verification, making it harder for unauthorized users to gain access. MFA provides an extra layer of security to make sure that even if one authentication factor is compromised, unauthorized access is still blocked.

Best Practices:

• Enforce MFA: Implement MFA for all users, requiring them to provide an additional verification method, such as a code from a mobile app, in addition to their password.
• Adaptive MFA: Use adaptive MFA to assess risk levels and adjust authentication requirements accordingly.

6. Sessions

Controlling and monitoring user sessions is vital to prevent unauthorized access and ensure that sessions remain secure. Effective session management helps to detect and terminate suspicious activity, reducing the risk of unauthorized access.

Best Practices:

• Session Timeout: Configure session timeout settings to automatically log out users after a period of inactivity.
• Session Monitoring: Monitor active sessions and terminate any that appear suspicious or unauthorized.

7. Object-Level Access Control

Object-level access control allows you to manage access to specific objects within your Snowflake account, ensuring that only authorized users can access sensitive data. Granular access controls help prevent unauthorized data access and ensure that users only have access to the data they need.

Best Practices:

• Object Privileges: Assign object privileges carefully to ensure users only have access to the specific objects they need.
• Object Ownership: Regularly review and update object ownership and permissions to maintain a secure environment.

8. Column-Level Access Control

Securing sensitive data at the column level helps prevent unauthorized access to specific pieces of data. Column-level access control allows you to protect sensitive information while still providing necessary access to non-sensitive data.

Best Practices:

• Column Masking: Use column masking to obscure sensitive data, ensuring only authorized users can view the actual data.
• Column Permissions: Assign column-level permissions to restrict access to sensitive data fields.

9. Data Encryption

Data encryption is crucial for protecting data from unauthorized access, both at rest and in transit. Encryption ensures that even if data is intercepted, it cannot be read without the appropriate decryption keys.

Best Practices:

• Encryption at Rest: Ensure all data stored in Snowflake is encrypted using strong encryption algorithms.
• Encryption in Transit: Use TLS encryption for all data transmitted between your Snowflake instance and other systems.

10. Prevent Data Exfiltration

Preventing data exfiltration involves implementing measures to ensure that data cannot be easily extracted or stolen. Data loss prevention (DLP) and comprehensive monitoring help detect and prevent unauthorized data transfers.

Best Practices:

• Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Use DLP policies to monitor and restrict data transfers based on predefined rules.
• Auditing and Monitoring: Enable comprehensive auditing and monitoring to track data access and transfers, identifying and responding to potential exfiltration attempts.

Final Words

Securing your Snowflake account is like building a fortress around your most precious assets. It involves a combination of network security, identity and access management, data encryption, and more.

By following these best practices, you can significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches, ensuring your valuable data remains safe and secure.

Remember, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So, stay vigilant, regularly review your security settings, and keep your Snowflake environment as secure as Fort Knox.

Ready to Fortify Your Snowflake Fortress? Let’s Talk!

Statistics Reference:

^[i] 451 Research