Zapier & MS SQL - Use azure DB to increase security?

Question

I'm interested in using Zapier to automate some processes that should be fired upon certain records appearing as the result of a custom query. Zapier seems to be a good tool as it can do things based upon said query. In this case i need to fire off some data to a webhook, and then update the original record.

I could build this out myself, but why re-invent the wheel?

What am i concerned about is their security. Their documents require you to open up port 1433, and whitelist their IP address, then supply a username and password to them that they use to connect.

As long as our security is configured properly:

• Firewall: NAT policy only transforms if the IP matches

• Firewall: rules only allow requests from zaps IP to communicate

• Using a secure password

• Restricting the account to only the tables/data needed

I'm worried about this security, my solution was setting up a simple Azure DB, and using Azure DB Sync to replicate the tables from the onpremise database to the azure cloud DB, and then have zapier connect to that. Azure Sync seems to be a bit more secure in the way it transports data.

Am i just complicating my life without actually increasing security? Is there a better way to do this?

Answer 1

Azure connections are encrypted (SSL/TLS) by default when connecting to Azure SQL Database although it is vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attack.

You have many choices to increase security. You can use Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) as explained here. You can also use dynamic data masking, row-level security, Always Encrypted and Cell-level encryption.

To receive alerts over anomalous activities with your Azure SQL Database you can enable Threat Detection.

Finally, you can make use of Azure Active Directory authentication and multi-factor authentication to enhance security.