Tracking end-users in web databases

When a database is accessed via a web application, users usually receive a pooled connection to the database. From a database point of view, such a connection is always established by the same user (i.e. the web application) and specific data on the end user is not available. As a consequence, users' specific transactions cannot be audited and fine-grained access control cannot be enforced at the database level. In this paper we propose a method and a system which provide the ability to track the end users in web databases. The new method can be applied to legacy web applications without requiring any changes in their existing infrastructure. Furthermore, the new users tracking ability provides a basis for native database protection mechanisms, and intrusion detection systems.