Abstract: The present invention discloses a mechanism for determining criticality of a SQL statement. A plurality of elements in the SQL statement is extracted. A score of the SQL statement is calculated based on a correlation relation among respective elements in the plurality of elements and base scores of the respective elements. The criticality of the SQL statement is determined based on the score of the SQL statement. In this way, a database administrator only needs to define a small number of rules according his own needs. In the meantime, the mechanism automatically analyzes a received simple or complex SQL statement according to the small number of rules defined by the user to determine its criticality, without missing any critical SQL statement, and thereby protect security of data in the database.