Identifying and Securing Sensitive Data at its Source

• US 20150324606A1
• Filed: 05/06/2015
• Published: 11/12/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Informatica LLC (Informatica, Inc. (California))
• Original Assignee: Informatica Corporation
• Inventors: Grondin, Richard, Gupta, Rahul
• Granted Patent: US 9,785,795 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6227 where protection concerns the structure of data, e.g. records, types, queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/205 involving negotiation or determination of the one or more network security mechanisms to be used, e.g. by negotiation between the client and the server or between peers or by selection according to the capabilities of the entities involved negotiation of communication capabilities H04L69/24

Abstract

A data management service identifies sensitive data stored on enterprise databases according to record classification rules that classify a data record as having a sensitive data type if the data record includes fields matching at least one of the record classification rules. The data management service determines assessment scores for enterprise databases according to sensitive data records and protection policies on the enterprise databases. The data management service provides an interface that groups enterprise databases having common attributes or common sensitive data types and indicates aggregated assessment scores for the groups of enterprise databases. Through the interface with the grouped enterprise databases, an administrator apply protection policies to enterprise databases. To apply the protection policy, the data management service applies the protection policy to a source database from which dependent enterprise databases access the sensitive database.

Claims

1. A method for discovering and protecting sensitive data within an enterprise, the method comprising steps performed by one or more processors, the steps comprising:

obtaining database descriptions of enterprise databases, each database description indicating a database attribute of the corresponding database;

obtaining a record classification rule for a sensitive data type, the record classification rule specifying at least one field type;

identifying sensitive data records of the sensitive data type by identifying data records having the at least one field type specified by the record classification rule;

determining assessment scores for the enterprise databases, an assessment score determined from a number of identified sensitive data records in the corresponding database;

generating status indicators for groups of enterprise databases each having a common database attribute, a status indicator for an enterprise group reflecting a total number of identified sensitive data records in enterprise databases having membership in the enterprise group;

providing an interface comprising the generated status indicators;

receiving via the user interface a selection of one of the generated status indicators and a selection of a protection policy; and

applying the selected protection policy to sensitive data records of an enterprise database having membership in the enterprise group corresponding to the selected status indicator.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein applying the selected protection policy to sensitive data records of the enterprise database having membership in the enterprise group comprises:

identifying a source database providing sensitive data records to enterprise databases having membership in the enterprise group corresponding to the selected status indicator; and

applying the selected protection policy to the sensitive data records of the identified source database.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the selection of one of the generated status indicators comprises:

receiving, via the interface, an initial selection of an enterprise database;

identifying a source database providing data records to the initially selected enterprise database;

identifying a set of dependent databases accessing source data records from the source database;

providing, in the interface, a lineage view comprising;

database status indicators of the source database and the set of dependent databases, and

connection elements indicating data access dependency relationships between the database status indicators; and

receiving the selection of the one of the generated status indicators from one of the source status indicator and the dependent database status indicators.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein providing the lineage view in the interface comprises:

identifying an additional set of secondary dependent databases accessing source data records from the set of dependent databases; and

providing, in the interface, the lineage view comprising;

database status indicators of the source database, the set of dependent databases, and the set of further dependent databases, and

connection elements indicating data access dependency relationships between the database status indicators.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein each database description indicates an organizational affiliation of the corresponding enterprise database, and wherein generating status indicators for groups of enterprise databases comprises:

identifying organization-based groups of the enterprise databases, each organization-based group comprising enterprise databases having a same organizational affiliation;

determining aggregate assessment scores for each organization-based group of enterprise database that increases with assessment scores of enterprise databases having membership in each organization-based group; and

generating each status indicator according to an aggregate assessment score of a corresponding organization-based group, at least one of a size of the status indicator and a color of the status indicator reflecting the assessment score.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein determining assessment scores for the enterprise databases comprises:

determining each assessment score for a corresponding enterprise database as a risk score from a linear combination of at least three of;

a number of sensitive data records in the corresponding enterprise database, a number of sensitive fields in the sensitive data records of the corresponding enterprise database, a number of dependent enterprise databases obtaining the sensitive data records from the corresponding enterprise database, a value of the sensitive data records of the corresponding enterprise database corresponding to sensitive data types of the sensitive data records, and whether a protection policy has been applied to the sensitive data records of the corresponding enterprise database.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining assessment scores for the enterprise databases comprises:

obtaining a record cost value corresponding to the sensitive data type of the identified sensitive data records; and

determining each assessment score for a corresponding enterprise database as a cost score proportional to the record cost value and proportional to a number of sensitive data records of the sensitive data type in the corresponding enterprise database.

8. The method of claim 1, generating the status indicators for groups of enterprise databases comprises:

generating status indicators for each corresponding enterprise database, an area of each status indicator reflecting a number of sensitive data records in the corresponding enterprise database, a color of each status indicator reflecting an assessment score of the corresponding enterprise database.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the status indicators for groups of enterprise databases comprises:

identifying subsets of enterprise databases each comprising enterprise databases having a first database attribute in common and a second database attribute in common;

determining an aggregate assessment score for each subset of enterprise databases that increases with assessment scores of enterprise databases in each subset; and

generating a status indicator for each subset of enterprise databases, a color of each aggregate protection indicator reflecting the determined aggregate assessment score for the subset of enterprise databases.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the first database attribute is membership in a common enterprise group and the second database attribute is storing sensitive data of a common sensitive data type, and wherein providing the interface comprising the generated status indicators comprises:

providing the interface comprising a grid of the generated aggregate protection indicators, the grid organized along a first axis separating the aggregate protection indicators by the first database attribute and a second axis separating the aggregate protection indicators by the second database attribute.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

receiving, through the interface, a selected axis header of the first axis, the selected axis header corresponding to the first database attribute;

determining a further aggregated assessment score for enterprise databases having the first database attribute in common; and

providing, via the interface, the further aggregated assessment score in line with the selected axis header.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the generated status indicators comprise at least of:

components of a heat map, graph bars, and slices of a pie chart.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying sensitive data records of the sensitive data type by identifying data records having the at least one field type specified by the record classification rule comprises:

obtaining field types of data records from table headers of the data records; and

identifying a data record as sensitive in response to determining that obtained field types for the data record comprise the at least one field type specified by the record classification rule.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying sensitive data records of the sensitive data type by identifying data records having the at least one field type specified by the record classification rule comprises:

obtaining field classification rules specifying character patterns for field types included in the record classification rules;

retrieving a data record sampled from an enterprise database;

determining field types of the sampled data record according to the character patterns of the field classification rules; and

identifying the data record as having the sensitive type according to the determined field types and the record classification rule.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying sensitive data records of the sensitive data type by identifying data records having the at least one field type specified by the record classification rule comprises:

obtaining field classification rules specifying character patterns for field types included in the record classification rules;

retrieving a plurality of data records sampled from an enterprise database;

determining numbers of matching data records having fields matching the character patterns of the field classification rules;

determining that the enterprise database has a field type in response to the number of matching data records exceeding a verification threshold; and

identifying the data record as having the sensitive type according to the determined field types and the record classification rule.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions, the instructions executable by at least one processor to cause it to:

obtain database descriptions of enterprise databases, each database description indicating enterprise group membership of the corresponding database;

obtain a record classification rule for a sensitive data type, the record classification rule specifying at least one field type;

identify sensitive data records of the sensitive data type by identifying data records having the at least one field type specified by the record classification rule;

determine assessment scores for the enterprise databases, an assessment score determined from a number of identified sensitive data records in the corresponding database;

generate status indicators for groups of enterprise databases, a status indicator for an enterprise group reflecting a total number of identified sensitive data records in enterprise databases having membership in the enterprise group;

provide an interface comprising the generated status indicators;

receive via the user interface a selection of one of the generated status indicators and a selection of a protection policy; and

apply the selected protection policy to sensitive data records of an enterprise database having membership in the enterprise group corresponding to the selected status indicator.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein identifying sensitive data records of the sensitive data type by identifying data records having the at least one field type specified by the record classification rule comprises:

obtaining field types of data records from table headers of the data records; and

identifying a data record as sensitive in response to determining that obtained field types for the data record comprise the at least one field type specified by the record classification rule.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein identifying sensitive data records of the sensitive data type by identifying data records having the at least one field type specified by the record classification rule comprises:

obtaining field classification rules specifying character patterns for field types included in the record classification rules;

retrieving a data record sampled from an enterprise database;

determining field types of the sampled data record according to the character patterns of the field classification rules; and

identifying the data record as having the sensitive type according to the determined field types and the record classification rule.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein each database description indicates an organizational affiliation of the corresponding enterprise database, and wherein generating status indicators for groups of enterprise databases comprises:

identifying organization-based groups of the enterprise databases, each location-based group comprising enterprise databases having a same organizational affiliation;

determining aggregate assessment scores for each organization-based group of enterprise database that increases with assessment scores of enterprise databases having membership in each organization-based group; and

generating each status indicator according to an aggregate assessment score of a corresponding organization-based group, at least one of a size of the status indicator and a color of the status indicator reflecting the assessment score.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein applying the selected protection policy to sensitive data records of the enterprise database having membership in the enterprise group comprises:

identifying a source database providing sensitive data records to enterprise databases having membership in the enterprise group corresponding to the selected status indicator; and

applying the selected protection policy to the sensitive data records of the identified source database.